Certain Trust
by Yincira
Summary: "It's not a flaw, it's extropy," Zelas said.
1. Val's Feathers

**· · · · · · ·**

Certain pain is necessary for the world to keep turning, so cats must hunt and birds must die. He understood this, but right now he didn't care very much for it.

Val grabbed the nearest vase and hurled it at the cat in the doorway. The hunter shot out the way she'd come on, leaving behind her prey : a limp white dove splattered red.

He carefully lifted the bird, hoping to save her and knowing it was in vain. He could feel the warmth of life slip away. This had been his favorite bird, raised by himself, the one who always returned with fun stories to tell. Holding her close he sat down, mindless of the shards.

A sound behind him drew his attention, different from the city ruckus outside. In the storage room door stood a blur of white, pink and yellow, his mother. He brought one hand to his eyes to wipe the tears away. When he could see clearer, his mother had crossed the room already.

"Oh, Val." She knelt down and brushed her hand across his head, her other gently pulling him to his feet. Her tail flicked a few of the shards away from around him.

"Val, I know you cared for that bird, but the cat already had brought her to you, right? There was no need to try and hurt him."

Still looking at the bloodied white feathers, he muttered, "I was just angry. Why do we need to have that cat anyway?"

Her tone wasn't harsh, but he felt reprimanded anyway when she outlined, once again, why. The cat kept the rats away, which could carry diseases and took their food, and he gave friendly company. His mother loved that cat, despite its sometimes vicious nature.

"But she hurts the birds."

"Would you like it if because of the cat, I'd forbid you to feed the birds?"

He quickly shook his head.

"Would getting rid of this one cat really save the birds?"

Off course it wouldn't, the cat would just hunt with its new owner. Still ...

"We could lock up the cat!"

"Val, we run a shop. It's impossible to keep all doors closed at all times. Besides, some cats are too wild to be kept indoors, ours is one of them."

He pressed his lips together and would have covered his ears if he could. He didn't want to hear this again.

"I love the birds too, off course," she said gently. "But this is just the way nature is and we can't change that."

She laid a hand on the bird's wing, which hung over Val's arm. "Would you like to bury the bird?"

He nodded stiffly.

"Let me finish up in the back, alright? You go ask miss Elena to find a box."

Val did so and after a little half hour, he and his mother were on their way to the city's edge.

Since the cannon factories had been opened, they had been able to afford bigger houses than before, but nevertheless their current house was in the city and there was no room for gardens. This was why his mother had bought an allotment garden on the outskirts, near the lake. He could always feed the ducks, there.

The burial was a silent thing. They chose a small corner of the garden, shadowed by a jasmine. Val would have liked his siblings to be there, since Palu and Molly had helped him raise the bird. They were at school, however. He didn't go there anymore after the second time he'd accidentally hurt someone.

The prayer that his mother spoke was one she had learned long ago, when she had still served at the temple. Val had once asked her why she kept their words if her back was on the holy order, she had told him that gods and their followers were not one and the same. A few alterations to the verse indicated this, she no longer spoke of disciples.

At the end, he placed the earth atop the bird with his bare hands, after which his mother went around the yard to choose flowers with a meaning. He'd forgotten their meaning, but didn't want to say so as she laid them down. For his own gift, Val grew out some feathers on his back, and pulled one out. He winced at the sting, but retained silence.

This ritual done, his mother let go of a deep breath.

"Would you like to return home now?"

He shook his head. "Gotta feed the ducks."

"I thought so," she said with a warm smile. From her little pocket dimension, she conjured up a sack of celery, peas and other vegetables. He accepted it, and ran off.

The lake lay at the end of the garden, barely visible through the thick reed. He had a small spot where he could climb on a tree root to sit in the middle of the swaying stems, for which he took his shoes off. Splashing his toes into the water was the way to call the birds.

The mild quarreling and splashing took his mind off of the dove a little. He loved watched birds because they were the only creatures truly like him. Wings like his own, feathers they didn't have to hide. He especially liked birds with colorful feathers, like peasants, but they were too shy to approach in the wild. Where they had lived before, he had kept a den with them, but had set them free. They were more beautiful that way.

Val was born a dragon the size of a kitten and had spent the first few years of his life in his true form. His family was wont to tell those who saw him by chance that he was a black salamander bird chimera, up until he by accident had spoken to a customer, and then there had been rumors of sorcery that turn children into pets. They had moved not long after that.

Now Val lived a life as a human, ever careful to conceal his true self. He had special clothing for accidental transformations and knew the cues that might trigger an accident. It wasn't bad living this way, but it didn't really feel like himself. Often he wondered what it would be to have been born a bird. Not with birds, because then he would not have his family. But if he'd been a real bird, not a hated dragon, they would have less trouble.

There'd be a lot he would miss, though. Talking, playing, cities, opposable thumbs, even school. Would he even be the same person at all, if he had led such a different life? His experience would have been so different if he'd been a bird only. Luna had chided him once for desiring anything but what he had for that reason. He had always thought she was wrong, Val was Val, but today he truly reconsidered for the first time.

If he had been a bird, he might have been the one to die today.

So caught up in his thoughts, he didn't realize the footsteps approaching him were too light until the bushes parted. He stopped in the middle of turning and about to speak as he saw the stranger.

The man had long blond hair and golden eyes that looked down on him without saying much of anything. He smelled familiar, though Val couldn't recall ever meeting him before.

"What's your name, boy?"

"I'm not supposed to talk to strangers," he muttered. His mother encouraged politeness and there was no harm in giving names, but she had also told him that if he felt a situation was unpleasant, politeness wasn't required at all.

This man's face didn't move enough. If his mother had invited him into the garden, why was she not here to introduce him?

"Who are you?" he asked, slowly climbing to his feet. A memory he couldn't hold onto left a warning in his waking mind.

"Asnotkar, vassal of lord Gurionis, chosen leader of Windlord Valwin," he said. As he approached, he passed below sun rays. No, that was not blond hair, but golden.

Before him stood a golden dragon, one as his mother, but who might very well be an enemy.

Val kicked off his shoes off and growled. The ducks scattered, but the dragon remained stoic.

"Val, to the sky!" his mother screamed from far away. He barely heard it, but he obeyed without second thought. Going from human to dragon took no spell, so he pushed out his wings from below his jacket and tore loose his belt.

When mom told him this, it meant the people chasing him were not humans, and he couldn't outrun them. In full dragon form, no larger than a shepherd dog, he sped across the the water.

A narrow white flash grazed his tail, costing him a few feathers. He squeaked, fear threatening to paralyze him. His mother had demonstrated what laserbreath did, he knew exactly what would happen if he was hit. His best chance was the forest, where he could hide.

This time he recognized the sound that came before the laser and he swung aside just in time. Almost across the lake now.

He crashed through the reed, lost sense of direction and so collided into the muddy banks. Another white ray burned a hole through the reed right overhead. This time he did freeze, realizing he would have been hit if he'd gotten ahead earlier. Yet somehow, it didn't feel like the first time he'd been close to death.

The blast hit a tree, burning part out of it. The top started to fall and Val's instincts kicked in again. He scrambled out of the way, just in time. With a loud splash the tree landed in the water while Val disappeared into the undergrowth.

Where did he go to now? It would be no use if he beelined for a hiding place only to be spotted entering it.

A small white feather drifted into his path. Instead of landing, it fluffed away on a breeze that Val did not feel. Almost he ignored it, but a sharp impulse made him follow.

The feather led him down a wild path he only vaguely knew. Behind him, leathery wings grew louder in the wind. Soon the dragon would be over him. Just then, the feather fell into a rabbit hole, and he dove after it. Above a golden dragon shot over, never seeing him.

Val breathed in deeply, out again, in again, and waited.

When the golden dragon couldn't be heard anymore, another white feather darted past the hole's opening. He went after it at once.

Down the road the feathers created for him, the forest turned denser. He still could fly, small as he was, but did not need to hide anymore as they flew overhead. Yet, the speed of his strange guide did not let up. Soon he realized why : there were the footsteps of a running man behind him.

How? Oh, right, he'd left a trail of footprints and broken branches. They human shaped one could follow him so easily.

The feather suddenly made a sharp turn and led him into a wide meadow. A crawling sensation went up his spine, but he did not hesitate.

He should have, at least a little. When he burst from the undergrowth, he collided head first with a pair of legs in baggy black pants. A red and yellow patch told him who it was before he even looked up.

"Oh my, you seem to have reached a whole new level of problem, Val."

Evil Wizard Cone Person Thingy, also known as Wet Trash, Cockroach, Sewer Priest, Go Away and sometimes Xelloss. Mom would be angry he was lurking around, but Val knew him as safe right now. Quickly, he crept behind the devil's legs and under the cloak.

Shadows crossed the sun and trees creaked under the weight of two golden dragons. Their claws curled around branches and stems, their faces unreadable, but by instincts he recognized signs of the hunt : slightly raised tails, the way the wings were flared sideways.

A third dragon appeared from the undergrowth, the same as before and still in human form. Asnotkar still looked eerily lifeless, but not so frightening anymore now that Xelloss was her. Val knew Xelloss was stronger than most things he might encounter in this world.

"What is a devil doing here?" Asnotkar asked. He did not use human language, but the growls and rumbles of dragon language. His mother had learned him this in case he'd ever be in trouble with them. He'd always thought she was pessimistic, now to think she'd been _optimistic_ when assuming he'd live to talk.

"Doesn't matter," one in the trees said. "We can't let him have an ancient dragon alive. They'll surely find a terrible way to utilize those violent creatures."

"Such big words over such a small dragon cub," Xelloss said. "You are not of the fire nomads, am I correct? Are you wind or earth alligned?"

Asnotkar said with pure contempt, "What would it matter to _you_? The fact that I can transform as I do should cause you to be alert, and I'll—"

"The fact that I'm not fearful in the slightest should be a warning to you just as much. I am curious now, how come a high ranked dragons such as yourself is wandering around in the human backwaters, at the edge of a desolate land?"

"I could ask you the same."

"Hmm, clearly this conversation will not go anywhere, don't you agree, Val?" Xelloss looked down, or feigned doing so. Val could never figure out when his eyes were closed or just narrowed. Maybe he didn't even need eyes to see.

"Yes," he squeaked, putting stubby forearms around Xelloss' leg. "Can we go to mom now?"

"Off course."

Xelloss just twirled his finger and never stopped smiling as the top two dragons exploded into a gory mess. The bits burned up before even hitting the ground.

Asnotkar was stunned for all of three seconds before he turned to run, but a wall of tiny black cones got in the way. He froze, turning back again.

"Who are you?"

"I'm afraid that today, that is a secret. Wouldn't want you to get chatty in the afterlife, you see. You are free to take a few guesses, though. I can't do much about that."

Jillas and Gravos had told him devils feed on bad feelings, that likely was why Xelloss didn't just kill him. Asnotkar had to be very scared and Val almost felt sorry for him. Almost. If he hadn't tried to kill him.

What if that dragon already killed his mother?

"Xelloss, we gotta go to mom."

"Ah well, I suppose I'll cut this short."

Asnotkar spasm then, and a small cone slowly bore out of his stomach. Others broke the skin on his arms, one out of his eye, and he could not scream because his throat was nothing but thin black cones. With a snap of his fingers, blue fire broke from the cones.

Death felt like an old familiar thing to Val, he didn't understand why.

When the last bits of blue fire had leaked away, Val crawled out from behind Xelloss's legs and looked up. Xelloss smiled, as he always did.

"Thank you, can we go to mom now, please?"

"Give me a moment to scry for any magic items she might carry."

"She wore her diadem today."

"That'll do."

"What did they mean with that they can't let you have me alive?"

"Oh, didn't miss Filia tell you? The devil council was once very interested in having an ancient dragon on their side. These dragons believed I had come to abduct you and turn you into a chimera, no doubt. Off course, that idea relies on devils beyond the beast court knowing you exist."

"That's stupid, I'm not a bad person so I'd never work for them. Mom thinks you're going to take me away anyway."

"Tss, tss. What the devil lords as a whole want doesn't quite line up with my lord's interests. Miss Filia should know that a secret I keep is well kept." He leaned down and lightly laid a hand on his head, and the world glowed golden.

The scenery shifted before he fully noticed the change. Instead of a breaking corpse before him, there were the torn edges of his mother's white cloak.

She stood with her back to them as she peered around a tree, but off course no devil could be so close without her noticing. Xelloss had given up trying to sneak up years ago. Wide eyed she turned around and was about to speak, then she noticed Val.

She smelled of her own blood, but before he could ask, she'd lifted him. Cradled in her arms, he pushed his crest against her cheek softly. He was safe now, warm all around.

"Mom, why don't you heal? We're safe now."

"Sssshh! They're still there," she whispered. "We've got to—"

With another golden glow, the forest was replaced by the warm glow of the hearth.

"... hide ... " His mother trailed off as she realized they were home.

Her frantic heartbeat slow down, but she remained tense and held onto him. Xelloss flickered out of view again, this time without glow. Xelloss could not take Val along with his space warping technique, but he could teleport him by using his mother's technique, should he have a reserve of holy energy for it. He must have met her before finding him.

Now he was gone, his mother let out a breath. She didn't seem relieved, however. Still holding him with both arms, she pulled out a table chair with her tail and carefully set him down. Then she briskly stepped to the windows and jerked the curtains shut. The tiny garden was full with high dense shrubs, ensuring passerby's weren't likely to see anything incriminating, but she never felt entirely safe.

"I'll go get you some new clothes, Val," she said while draping a towel over him.

"It's okay, I'll stay like this for a while."

"Ah ah, there will be ice cream, you'll need hands." She always used this when persuaded him to transform into human shape. It worked, too. Ice cream was very tough to eat as a dragon, thanks to the lack of proper lips. Nonetheless, every time Val wished he wouldn't need to hide.

While his mother went to find Elena, Val curled into the towel and tried reciting the spell to transform into a human. It wasn't easy, it never was. There was no pain in transformation with holy magic, but all too often Val lost touch with the magic halfway through and he had to start again. Xelloss said he was magically unstable, which was why he wouldn't risk warping space around him.

Elena returned alongside his mother, carrying a new set of clothing for him. By then, he had just barely managed to appear human again. Grumbling, he pulled the clothes under the towel and started to change.

"Val, Molly will be home from school in an hour or so," his mother said. "Will you tell us what happened now, before she arrives?"

Val nodded. Molly was the child of Elena and Jillas, they'd decided to raise her as happily as they could. This meant minimal warnings about dangerous dragons, lots of vague rules about talking to strangers, and no word about death and gore. Until today, that last rule hadn't needed to be minded.

His story of what happened started with ducks and ended with Cone Thingies. The death of the dragons caused them a lot of uncomfortable looks, even though Val didn't go into detail. What caught their attention the most, though, was the feathers. Elena speculated a forest spirit had been helping out, but his mother shook her head and pulled her out of the room. They went into the fridge and whispered to one another there. Val tried to listen.

"... at when he was reb ..."

Val didn't know how he was a reb, but his mother didn't seem at all eager to talk about it. Maybe a rebel? Hm, that did fit, Palu was called rebellious by Jillas during his so called teen phase, which was now, and Palu said his mother was rebelling against her own kind by raising him. Maybe that made him a perpetual rebel, because they didn't want him to be alive?

When they returned and his mother had set down a bowl of icecream before him, he asked, "What were you talking about?"

"Ehm ... Val, you really ought to reconsider calling him Cone Thingy. He might get angry. Today you have seen what he can do, does that not frighten you?" Elena said as she sat down besides him.

Val shook his head quickly. "No, he doesn't mind and he's not scary."

Evil Wizard Cone Person Thingy was Val's personal use because he didn't always feel angry at him, but he couldn't call him a devil in front of other people, and he wanted to follow his mother with her nickname tradition. He'd developed his own after deep thought and it made his mother smile, so he kept doing it.

She hadn't smiled today, curiously. As his mother started making tea her movements were tense and stiff, unlike the grace she usually had. She had to still be very scared.

"Mommy, what's wrong?"

Elena sighed, her snout dipping low.

"Elena, what's wrong with mom? Are you sad too?"

His mother sobbed once, restrained, then she laid her hand over her face.

"There are more dragons," she whispered. "They were here with a whole scouting party, twelve in total. He'll kill them all."

"But they're threatening us! We didn't do anything wrong, so they are wrong. I don't care if he kills them!"

"That doesn't mean they deserve death, Val! They might have families who will miss them, just like I would miss you. Now, they don't even have a chance to learn you are no threat. Killing others should be a last resort only."

"Isn't he doing that? They know we exist now, so he can't let them go, right?"

"We can just go live elsewhere, nobody needs to die. Xelloss doesn't need to do this, he's so powerful."

"But the golden dragons can talk to us and already live elsewhere, and they try to hurt us anyway."

His mother sighed. "You'll understand when you're older that the world isn't so simple."

"But when the cat kills, you are okay with it?"

"Cats don't have higher reasoning, Val. It's not the same."

"What if it was the last dove?"

She stayed silent so long the kettle started blowing. Absently, she took it off the fire and said, "Then we'd send the cat after other food."

"But without other doves, there wouldn't be more doves in the future anyway," he snapped, balling his fists.

"You're not that alone, and I would not let you die either way. Please don't try to draw a parallel here, it won't do."

"Don't we count, Val?" Elena asked. "Just because we think the others deserve to live doesn't mean we'd sacrifice you."

"Off course you count."

He pulled up his knees and locked his arms around them. There was an itch in his left hand, begging to transform and slash something. When the spoon in his hand started to bend, he jammed it in the ice cream.

"So what _is_ Xelloss, if he's not a cat?"

"Xelloss is something that can _feed_ on _us_. That's why he's here so often, and I can only hope that's all it is," his mother said. "Speaking of food ... I better go prepare dinner. Gravos is probably going to eat another hole in the supplies once he's back."

Val finished his ice cream, while Elena joined his mother to make dinner. Soon the air filled with the scent of stew, and the forced idle chatter of the two ladies.

Cone Thingy was a devil his mother had met on a mission to save the world seven years ago, the same mission where she had found his egg. Everyone else insisted he was dangerous, but he, Palu and Molly had a hard time believing it when he was so silly. Sometimes he and Xelloss played, or he'd ask him about his dreams and have him make drawings of things he saw there.

He had always thought Xelloss really meant well, and it was just all teasing when he bugged his mother. Only last year he had learned it was not so easy for his mother. When his mother had received a strange letter from her about a 'long quest' and then no more news, she'd become worried. The timing of her disappearance was too coincidental, too short after Lina's defeat of a third piece of Shabranigdu. His mother's divination attempts all failed, and she'd began to fear Lina was dead. Once day, she had broken down in tears while trying to get Xelloss to talk.

Xelloss had just kept smiling and said he had no idea, waving off her sorrow like a triviality. He suggested Lina had installed an anti-scrying shield and might have forgotten her, or Lina might have died gruesomely, or perhaps she was simply very far away at a place without postal office, like a stranded island. She had later told him that Xelloss didn't offer comfort because this was how devils fed, and the only reason he didn't make a habit of making her miserable was because his favorite taste was irritation, not sorrow.

Val couldn't even imagine how one could eat emotions like it was icecream, so he didn't really know what that made Xelloss. Cats that ate birds killed the bird, but no real harm came from Xelloss eating emotions. Except, off course, when he _caused_ bad emotions.

He probably was eating very deliciously right now.

Even if he could be nasty like that, Xelloss was nicer than the golden dragons his mother always warned him about and today just proved that. Val wondered whether he'd care more if those dragons had looked like himself. The thought of any of his family dying that way horrified him, but he couldn't supplant the strangers with them.

He was licking out his ice cream bowl by the time Xelloss blinked into the kitchen chair opposite of him. As always, he smiled pleasantly. Not the face of a murderer.

"Is there any tea, miss Filia?"

Normally she would have told him to conjure his own tea. Not today. Without a word or even a second glance, his mother poured Xelloss a cup and shoved it across the table.

"Such poor manners again," Xelloss said with a sigh.

"Someone who refuses to use the door is in no position to complain about manners."

Xelloss never knocked. He said it would be useless, houses did not exist on the astral plane anyway. Val regularly heard irritated rants about trespassing being illegal, and people who didn't respect private space being bad news. Val wasn't really sure what side to pick, cause he often thought Xelloss's visits were fun.

"You did not seem so averse to my astral endeavors when you sent me for your son, miss Filia."

"That's different. Now out with it. I presume you know something, considering your timing?"

"As a matter of fact, I do. Lately, the western dragons have been sending delegations to the east for matters we have yet to discern, I was in this area to keep an eye on them. My most recent encounters were no more talkative than any of the previous ones, I'm afraid."

"Would it have anything to do with Val?" Elena asked. "They were very intent to kill him, right?"

"The western dragons are much like the eastern ones, they subscribe to the popular notion that the ancient dragons very terribly violent creatures. However, I believe they might have overestimated Val's power and tried to merely injure him. When they finally noticed me, I tasted their intent to kill him as quite new. I must warn you that there likely was a dragon diviner amongst the group, so others of their flock may have heard word. Should they confront you about Val, miss Filia, you would do well to blame miss Lina Inverse for his presence. Wouldn't want them to know you're conspiring with a devil."

"I'm not conspiring with a devil! It was your decision alone to keep this secret, I never asked you."

"Actually, that was a decision I made that was retroactively approved by my lord Beastmaster Zelas."

"Besides, Lina isn't—"

"They don't know that, and if not even I can find her, they certainly can't do so to verify it. Not that it mattered if they did, surely miss Lina would play along. For a price."

"Hmmph. Maybe you simply underestimate your scrying powers, sewer priest."

The familiar twitch of eyebrows appeared on Xelloss. At this point, they'd be verbally sparring on a good bad day, but it was no surprise that for once, Xelloss let it go.

"I said they did not verify why they visited you, but it was because of you that they came," he said, conjuring up a crystal ball. "They've been scrying for dragon magical items in this area, judging from the magic signs on this."

"That could mean anything."

"I asked both the first and the second group. They gave identical answers that included your name, so I'm inclined to believe them."

His mother abruptly looked away.

"Second group?"

"They had reinforcements. I questioned them. They said nothing of their overall mission, unfortunately. Apparently finding you was a side quest, as they were not lip locked over it."

"Why would they even talk to you if you're enemies?" Val asked.

"Well, normally the talking happens before the fighting, but during or after is just as viable. In fact, after works best when the enemy has been brought down and can be persuaded at ease."

Val needed a moment to realize it meant he tortured them.

"That's too cruel," Val said, but perhaps he could have been harsher about it. Well, at least his mother was be glad to hear he didn't like torture.

"I suppose we have that in common then, mister Vase The Cat Over A Dying Bird," Xelloss said, nodding at the door. There were still some shards and drops there, Xelloss probably could see the cat hairs too.

"That was just ... I didn't think that through."

"How do you know, young as you are? You might very well turn out the kind of person who would enjoy hurting others just to satisfy your own emotions," Xelloss said, one eerie eye open.

A loud clang startled Val and Elena. His mother had slammed down a pot on the sink. "Xelloss, don't ... "

Val and Elena sensed it was time to leave. As he turned to climb off the chair, he noticed her tail had appeared and was trembling a little. He could have sworn she looked afraid in the split second she looked over her shoulder.

At this, Val sank back into his seat. It wasn't that he didn't know his mother could be afraid, but it usually was when talking about the past of her clan. His people were the ancient dragons and they had been killed a long time ago by evil golden dragons. He had been revived through a miracle and placed in the care of Filia, last of her own clan. He had always thought they'd been bad to her too, because she was so different.

"Why are you afraid now?" he asked quietly. It couldn't be of Xelloss, she never was afraid of him. The fire dragon clan hadn't been mentioned either.

"I .. Val, it's ..."

"A secret," Xelloss said, raising a finger before his lips. "Miss Filia will tell you when she feels you are ready."

For once, his mother didn't object to him saying that. Weird.

"Val, why don't you go ask miss Katrina whether she'd still like to have our cat?"

His eyes widened, he knew what that meant. It was sealed, then.

"We're really leaving?"

"We should be prepared for it. If miss Katrina doesn't want her, we'll find someone else. Taking her on such a long journey is too traumatizing. Maybe Molly knows someone at school ... now where did I put that ..."

"Isn't it awfully premature to plan for leaving, miss Filia? And here I thought you actually meant it when you spoke of the value of a home. Flighty, I suppose."

"No. Not this again, Xelloss. This isn't a joke. Those dragons will be noticed by the people in the surrounding gardens and there's a crater where my garden used to be. I'm being cautious about dragon-hating towns," she sneered. "_You_ would know why."

He just sipped his tea, while his eyebrows twitch. "At least you learned from it."

"I could have learned that in a less destructive way."

"Reality demands a mixture of high ideals and striving for results," he said. "You know your role and I know mine, miss Filia. Let's keep things simple and act in our own methods, shall we?"

Xelloss said that a lot and Val had never understood this.

**· · · · · · ·**


	2. Zelas's Manifesto

**· · · · · · ·**

The unexpected always found a way to happen in this world. Particularly, it was the kind of unexpected that required extraneous actions to counter it, but with some effort it could be swung to her benefit. That was why Zelas herself was hunting dead dragons today.

Twelve little candlestick dragons, dancing down Megiddo. Deeper down they went on the currents of the world's flow, which brought all to the sea known as Hell. Should any devil ask, she tried her luck with the dead when the living would not speak.

Megiddo was the nexus that connected the world of the living to the world of the dead, working as a whirlpool to both sides. It sucked souls with a mind, and slung out those who had lost their identity to astral erosion. For all the power that Fibrizo had possessed, for all the might of Shabranigdu himself, they could not control the ebb and tide that Megiddo created on the flow of souls. It had no astral side, it existed beyond the astral side, it could not be touched or commanded. Theories and rumors amongst weary devils told Megiddo was lying within the staff of the worlds.

To the astral world, it stood below as an blue star on the dark red firmament. Even the most idiotic navigators could find their way by it. More troublesome for movement was the stream of souls, whose astral side shone a bright blue. In many places small threads flowed to the star, converging into a thin pillar below it. The closer an astral being came to a wide river, the easier they were blinded. To go amidst the pillar meant all loss of orientation, for a devil could only break the flow, not feel it deep enough to travel on it.

Lately Zelas had a need to pass Megiddo, so she had created a chimera of devil and wolf : a large silver wolf striped as a tiger with white and wings as a dragon. If she contracted her projection into a small enough human form, using plasma instead of matter, she could hold onto this chimera. He would pull her along across the astral plane, riding the flow for her.

Even so, they were slower than the average soul, let alone a dragon. Her prey was gaining ground without even having realized she was there, but Zelas was confident she would catch them on the other side. At this point, she was at the mercy of her chimera. Should it decide to throw her off, she could be lost here for a very long time, long enough without direction and sensation to lose some of her sanity. He would never throw her off though, Zelas was excellent at forging loyalty.

With something all too much resembling a pop into a void, the souls fell into the first expanses of Hell. Where previously they had been a diverse buffet, now their dim veil of miasma turned to wonder, disappointment, disillusionment and curiosity. See, the other end of Megiddo was all too similar to entrance. Clouds of rocks whirled around here as much on the other side, one could still see the pillar on the other side through the gaps. In fact, if one were head in the opposite direction of the flow, the one that returned souls to the living world, it would look almost exactly the same, only inversed. A pillar on this side, an unfolding flower on the other side.

The only difference between here and there was the lack of flower movement. Hell had no true exodus, it was merely a confused refugee camp. Not even a sign to anyone where to go or what would follow, let alone how they would ever find their family and loved ones. Clusters of souls hung around, trying to find consolation and guidance with one another. Many would wait for a long time before choosing any of the rivers that led further into Hell. Zelas was sorely tempted to linger and feed, but alas. She circled her mount higher to get a better view.

Since the last time, the thickest of the blue rivers had curled a little more inward and the dark hollow where Fibrizo had carved out a river in the red had contracted a little more. Ha! Five thousand years and never had he dented the walls of the worlds, let alone Megiddo itself. A few decades and it would be healed.

It was through Megiddo that the gods had believed they could chip away at Shabranigdu's mind. A tell tale sign of their naivety : merely taking away mental space did not mean the end of the ideas living in that space. By grace of their astral bodies, Shabranigdu and Gaav had retained their personality where their hosts were scrubbed into blank slates. Yet they were able to do so only by integrating a part of their body into the soul. Gaav had gone too far and become a true chimera, but even Shabranigdu was tainted by the souls to the point the host could influence them.

That had been Fibrizo's original reason to risk himself in finding Shabranigdu. He had believed he could intercept the fragments by controlling hell. Megiddo had been a pesky maze to him, not the power it ought to be respected as. Granted, the maze thing was a fitting description. Zelas had just spotted her prey, but they were in a different river than the one her mount was currently above. They'd have to cross the flow, and quickly. Once the dragons were further down Hell, they could access any old vision nexus and contact their tribe and then wham, Vrabazard or Valwin would know too much.

Zelas commanded her mount to jump from one soul cluster to another. This action caused them to scatter, and in no time her prey spotted her. With her astral form being colored so brightly and being so massive, she stood out like a sore thumb to any dragon that was skilled enough to see the astral side. The twelve formed a loose flock, but did not stick together. Those few most magically potent went ahead in the flew.

She drummed her wolf on the shoulder with slim fingers, he purred in response to her code. They would hunt the faster ones first, then corner the weaker. In addition to its purpose, the emotions would run up in their prey as they realized just how weak they were.

One hand was all she needed, her swords remained immaterial. Five thin light wires shot from her nails, tauntingly brushed across a dragon they passed, but aimed firmly at the one leader ahead. It touched none of the other souls on the way, but when her power reached the dragon, it wrapped firmly around its tail and crept up to the wings. The dragon cried out as its soul was encased by Zelas's magic, its astral form fragmenting under her power. A small snack for her, which she would repeat eleven times more.

Each soul she forced into the form of a small golden ball, a technique she had Xelloss raid from Fibrizo's remaining magic. It was an imperfect imitation, but it would do. They remained aware of their surroundings, so Zelas glowered over them as she rode deeper into Hell. There was a list of typical but mind breaking one liners she could say, she her her projection recite them as they went along. There wasn't any concrete hunger to still, Zelas got plenty on the way here, but she was being practical by building reserves. A trip to Megiddo _always_ was filling because so few liked to die.

Given the drama physical creatures made about dying, you'd think they ceased existing. Zelas supposed they couldn't help it. The very foundation of a soul was the instinct to live. Even the souls that had a good reason to stay in Hell, they'd be pulled to _live _the more their identity eroded, and this erosion was not something souls were hardwired to prevent or even be aware of. Many would eventually throw themselves into Megiddo.

Underlying this system was the principle of balance. Zelas respected this, but not those subject to it. There was a separate balance for her own kind, and those that did not evolve meant nothing to her beyond being of use, or already used. Honestly, most beings _knew_ they would die and end up in hell, yet they'd fight for a few more years of hardship anyway. This was particularly inexcusible of they were those who believed a paradise awaited them. Zelas almost felt petty enough to call them spoiled. They didn't _need_ to end with the destruction of their body, if they worked to stay themselves. When an astral creature died, they were gone. At best, chopped off parts of them would become new creatures, perhaps even similar ones, but the original identity was nothing anymore.

And then there were those lucky few that had become chimera.

"Zelas, what are you doing?" A cold voice, the start of the sentence farther away than the end. She was always so fast.

Zelas bothered to place a smile on her face as she turned to the angel, a radiant human-astral chimera with white hair, whose stoic demeanor made a strange contrast to her gently colored robes and feathered wings.

"Miss Milina, how early you are. My apologies for the disruption, I'm afraid there's been a broken dam," she purred, holding up the captured souls. "Be so kind as to lead me to your lord."

Milina narrowed her eyes slightly, then nodded.

"I presume you'll want to have a look the other two now?"

"Oh, is it obvious?"

"I'll let Lezo know once I brought you to Rangort. Follow me."

No more words wasted, Milina spun around and flew down an unpopulated stream, followed by Zelas.

Shabranigdu's hosts had been the reason Fibrizo had bothered with the afterlife in the first place, but he had never harvested much from that effort. The souls carrying the pieces of Shabranigdu, Ragradia and Ceiphied all cycled right out of the afterlife the moment they met Fibrizo. With their mortal souls in control and great power at disposal, Fibrizo's efforts to stop them often were in vain. It was as easy for them with just kick him off and fall into Megiddo's pull.

_Often_.

Her priest had snooped around hell a little when given the chance to visit the erstwhile Hellmaster and made an interesting discovery : Fibrizo _had_ managed to detain two pieces. Unfortunately Zelas had not met them, but dead dragons were an excellent excuse to meet with Rangort, the new Hellmaster.

Incidentally, Earthlord Rangort had gotten a tip about the oncoming power vacuum, allowing hir to take it before anyone else.

Incidentally, Rangort was the one to suggest that yes, perhaps for that desperate time of otherworldly invasion by Dugradigdu, the gods can do something like include a devil in the counter prophecy.

Incidentally, Rangort was not entirely inclined to attack Zelas on first sight.

Incidentally, Rangort had taken custody of those two souls.

However, just because this particular god understood that listening to Zelas could have benefits did not mean there was any trust. Zelas was not allowed to roam Hell without any escort, so beyond Megiddo she was expected to be in the company of an angel at least. Usually this was Milina, as she best best accustomed to the disruptive energy of devils.

Fibrizo had turned Hell to crystals and marbles, intent to mock the souls within by painting their torture chamber so beautifully. With his power gone, Rangort had adopted the crystals as they match hir's earthly themes, the blank spaces and torture plains were filled with gray earth.

Milina deftly wove across the landscape, forsaking full speed so the devils keep up. It was easier moving and seeing here than near the center of Megiddo, but she still had difficulty keeping up with an angel in a god's domain.

And how much of a god's domain it had become. Fibrizo was powerful, but not nearly omniscient and omnipotent enough that he could turn all of hell to misery. There were simply too many souls, but they had all existed in fear for him. The inhabitant's best hope was a featureless area to build a new society in, usually with strangers, and hope they did not draw the attention of Fibrizo or any of his lesser devils. Their greatest enemy : trying to figure out how to exist without notice of Fibrizo, how to return to Megiddo, how to cope with the shattering of all of their beliefs.

In his absence, communities had begun to flourish. Like ants on an anthill, they dug into the twisted earth to carve out towers and palaces. The trees were growing with diverse fruit than merely apples and fountains with the simulation of water had risen near them. Clergymen and priests no longer were broken, she saw several of them amidst the groups to preach a new creed.

Zelas was mildly amused, but mostly annoyed with what she heard. Service to Rangort had become the new holiness, they spoke with greater purpose than what drove the simple minded god. How they'd break if they truly understood what astral beings were like; forces without social needs like law, morality and ethics, sometimes even without solid personality. All those things they valued so much were trivial to many devils and gods alike. Zelas would like to find a really religious person who she personally make this understand, just to taste the results (according to Xelloss, broken dragon faith was an absolute delicacy). But who that believed they knew the gods would believe a devil?

"Why does Rangort bother?" Zelas asked, nodding at another community. "With them. E is doing more than just guarding the pieces."

"For now, e gains some miasma, but e still feeds on the flow of the living world. Perhaps it matters to hir after all whether people are alright. Ragradia had some care, did she not?"

"There is very little to care for a dead soul. What for? Food, sex, sleep, all those things are gone. What do these things even _do_ with their time?"

"Exactly, Zelas. What do they do? If a person dies, they lose their possessions and home, their ability to grow and change, they're thrust in a world they don't know at all and are unlikely to meet their loved ones again. They lose control over their fate. For many, cessation of existence would have been the kinder end, especially during the reign of Fibrizo," Milina said. "Rangort is creating a world she _can_ eat from by giving them a direction."

"Tss, the benefits are thin for a god. _They _can just sit back and let the flow carry food to them. What can a god give them to make them happy enough to feed?"

"Well ... Rangort_ is_ making a point of allowing new souls to be created by keeping these from reincarnating."

Aaah, there it was. The miasma that Rangort could gain from the dead was much less than from the living, since they lost so much functions that related to their bodies. That only applied to the current numbers, if she could raise the amount of emotive beings in a controlled environment that the devils usually ignored, she had long therm profit. Hmm, and perhaps there was a benefit that these souls could spread her religion to the world of the living.

Rangort might be making hir own plans for the future, the sort that tasted like a power grab. It was either forethought or lack of thought, considering how slow that harvest would be.

By the time Zelas could see Rangort's true form across the astral plane, the landscape of Hell had changed considerably. A mossy green tint had infected the atmosphere and the land had given up pretense of the living world. As if the wind had blown across fragile hills and smeared them out, green structures leaned across dark rivers that went in circles. No even ground was to be seen, so thickly they lay together, but there was a lone road that led to a dark cathedral. It was crudely molded from damp mud boiled to hard rock, or molten lave coaxed to mimic manmade structure. Only the windows were truly a homage, round and and ruby in lead.

Rangort lay thick across the landscape in the form of a yellow fog, small compared to hir were the souls of the Ancient Dragons. They were the praetorian guard when e was absent. When the dark flock noticed her, Zelas was met with hatred and distrust, yet it was not as fiercely tasteful as with the usual dragon. They knew her, a little.

The fact that Rangort was here at all meant e was also aware of certain unrest in the world. Of the three pieces of Shabranigdu that resided in Hell Luke was most likely to pose a threat, as his piece had partially awake.

Milina landed on the platform before the cathedral's entrance, right below Rangort's astral head. She bowed briefly, but there was no reverence in her posture or miasma. Rangort projected a human form, androgynous and of the dark tribal blood of the ancient tribes. This form gave a curt nod to Milina, and nothing was given of her Rangort's true form. All of this was merely show for the souls that were watching.

Well, Zelas knew the art of acting. Her wolf land and she swept off, imaginary wind blowing her white robes and hair.

"Hellmaster Rangort, how is the harvest?" she said, her voice congenial.

Rangort's face sharply turned to Zelas, green eyes glowering.

"Zelas ," Rangort growled. "What do you want here?"

"What, this is all the greeting I get? Perhaps I came to ask about why the wind dragons are trying to create something like a unified dragon nation. Are you conspiring against me?"

"Are you?"

Off course Zelas was, but that wasn't really the point right now.

"Have you become touchy, new Hellmaster?" She held up the captured souls. "These dragons here, they've found out about Val and the involvement of my priest. It would help if you could sent them in their way quickly, if you please."

With too symmetrical steps, Rangort walked over and snatched the souls from Zelas.

"I did not plan to send anyone towards Megiddo anytime soon," Rangort droned. "We're making such good efforts with postponing reincarnation. Most souls keep their sense of time for more than three years even without biological clock. Though I suppose a few dragons will make no difference."

Hir power folded over the souls and for a moment the dragons had joy. They recognized their god, held hope and faith and the overwhelming sensation of holy power nearer than they ever had dreamed. Those few seconds of bliss were enough to make Zelas's proverbial stomach churn.

Then Rangort ripped their astral bodies to pieces. Two dragons had enough identity to realize what was happened and spoke the beginning of a plea, Rangort forgot about this a second after she let go. The gravity of Megiddo swept the blank souls away.

Though the woman's face remained impassive, Zelas smelled Milina's conflict. She had never been a religious person so there was not much to break, but she had to understand what she had just witnessed. Not merely death, but true cessation of a person. Absolute erase, and absolute lack of guilt on behalf of either deity.

Less affected were the Ancient Dragons. They had long since accepted what the gods were like. After all, Vrabazard hadn't cared enough to drop his temple a simple line like, "Stop committing genocide on pacifists, it's not nice."

More over, they knew the last of their kind retained life because of these twelve dying. For ancient dragons, whose DNA was all but wiped out, there was no reincarnation. If their astral form eroded away, they'd just be an aimless specter, forever trapped here with a half-mind. A mixture of Val and cloning was their last hope.

A rather dimwitted hope, as far as Zelas was concerned. They better spend time on staying themselves. Many liked to think of reincarnation as a continuation for a person when in reality it was recycling. Whether by gods's claws, choice or Hell's astral corrosion, an individual ended just like that. That a soul remained changed nothing like that. For a thousand years, Zelas had questioned why devils who desired cessation so much could not give up and end themselves at times they realized they would never get what they wanted most.

That was why every time she was here, she entered the cathedral and told this to its prisoners. That, and long therm planning to ensure Rangort didn't find it strange if she wanted to hang out here for a little longer. That planning would bear fruit today, because Milina only now took off and would take a little while.

Rangort did not question her as Zelas pushed open the heavy door, it did not matter to gods if anyone was tortured as long as they did not need to taste it.

Pulsing red light flared out of the center of the dark hall, energy so thick that soon Zelas could not even feel Rangort's power in the walls anymore. Sound was quenched and the flow died here. Zelas stood in the rotting corpse of a decapitated Ruby Eye Shabranigdu, and the heart of this corpse was a man in a spherical cage.

Though without actual soul of their, when a piece of Shabranigdu was destroyed while the host soul practiced influence, something like a ghost remained due to the chimera process. It wasn't entirely unlike the concept of the Knights, except there was a will associated with the power. This will only wanted destruction, not the Sea of Chaos. Luke Yuukaral was one such a ghost. Lezo Greywords had found him before Zelas had, and had already been on the way to teach him how to govern his power. Zelas had joined this effort once it became relevant to her goals, but the official story to Rangort was that they would destroy the remaining power of Ruby Eye. E was fooled so easily Zelas could not even take pride in it.

Luke floated in the center of a wiry cage of dark red stone, curled up with his head low. The cage kept him in place should he lose control, but what really did it was his sheer willpower. Luke would have no destruction because Milina was out there and he was firmly against her cessation. A metallic band covered his mouth, preventing him and Shabranigdu from speaking. Even if he was a chimera now, Zelas and any other devil were still bound to obey his every command spoken in Ruby Eye's voice. This was too much of a risk.

When he saw her, he rolled his eyes. Luke always sat through her little rants with annoyance, but didn't make a big deal out of it. After all, Zelas and her project was his best shot at ever walking out of here to be with Milina. There wasn't much complaining to be done in front of the big boss.

"Mister Luke, not today. Today, be alert. You see, the plan will have to be sped up. I'll need to know the signature of the two untainted hosts."

She flicked a cigarette and a smoke into plasmic form and spent the time bringing him up to date with the recent developments. He couldn't ask, but as Zelas could smell and taste his emotions it wasn't difficult to steer a conversation. Curiosity was obvious, if a neutral emotion.

Within reasonable time, Milina returned. Though the thick haze of power, they barely heard her holler her lines. Snuffing out her cigarette, Zelas turned to the weakest section of the walls.

Said wall was kind enough to explode without knocked Luke's cage out of orbit. Milina burst through a dust cloud, flying backwards to keep her eyes on the thing that followed. Atop the rubble posed an unimpressive man with wild eyes and over embroidered cloak, the kind of person that liked to make an awesome impression but had spectacularly failed to grasp how this was done.

He roared to the ceiling, causing a few bricks to fall down right on top of him. Zelas, Milina and Luke exchanged an embarrassed look. Then Milina opened the door of Luke's cage and stepped in. Luke encased her with his power while Milina put forth a wing and tended to the feathers, bored already.

The host of Shabranigdu, one of seven, Doom To The World, was dusting off his coat and never realized that in this reality he could just will away dust. Zelas flicked her cigarette holder into a emerald encrusted sword; red handle adorned with green to support shining metal blade. There was a subtle mockery in this that had always gone over Shabranigdu's heads.

The host squinted his eyes, spotted Milina and unleashed an attack of generic fire waves without further thought. Zelas popped in the way and cut it apart like paper, getting rid of the dust clouds in the same move.

"That was all?" Milina asked. She prepared to get out, but Luke tugged her arm, causing Milina to roll her eyes. "I really doubt that guy's trying to trick us."

Zelas chuckled. The first wisp of the host's emotional miasma painted a personality much like Fibrizo, minus the sharp mind. "Don't worry, mister Luke. It's a fool alright."

"You, I command you to attack that god outside!" the host hollered.

Tsss. For all the power of that little soul, it was not the voice of Shabranigdu. She smiled as she floated over to that pathetic thing that hadn't even figured out he didn't need to walk here.

"Hmmm, perhaps I don't really feel like it," she said, placing a curled finger thoughtfully on her cheek. "Should I? Should I not?"

She spun around her axis and around him, the edges of her toga whirling around her. Her ethereal form been one chosen intentionally, modeled after the stereotypical saint but a little more provocative. In Hell where all instinct to breed was gone, its effect was more one of memory, but it usually was a pleasant memory to men. Something to play with. This man was no exception.

"Y-you're one of the five retainers, so you should help me regain my power!"

"Cute, thinks he can be Shabranigdu," she whispered as she laid her arms around his neck. For a few moments she held him with her eyes and let him enjoy the view, then she bore her nails in the back of his neck. "Yet can't even see the wolf whose jaws he is in."

Her power bore into the soul's astral body, thin threads rapidly infecting it's magic. She would remember this soul's mgic and forever be able to track it, and as a bonus the host gave off some tasty miasma.

"What are you ... why are you not obeying?" he stammered.

Tilting her head a little to the side, she smiled sweetly.

"Fibrizo lied when he told you dreams of dominion would come true. Shabranigdu takes you over and you are erased from existence," Zelas said. "All that changes is that you'll be entering cessation for me and not for him. Oh, and for future reference, my name is not _you_. To your kind, I am lord Zelas Metallium, lord Beastmaster and Greater Beast. Only those I will accept. Remember that."

She tore her nails out of him, leaving sharp marks across his back. The host crumpled down, Zelas kicked him a few feet further before he hit ground. Humiliation tasted so good, especially when fortified by a massive astral being.

The sealed Shabranigdu fumed at the treatment, yet he made no attempt to rectify her. It'd take too much effort for what he believed was honest dissent for a lowly human. Zelas was entirely fine with him continuing to believe so. Right now, only Luke's piece understood what game was played, and his piece was no more ally to the pure Ruby Eye than she was. Let it stay that way.

"Rangort, dear," she said as she tapped the floor. "Pay attention."

Roots broke from the cracking floor and encased the host in a similar way to Luke, though this cage had no door. Zelas tapped the curled bars as she floated by and said, "Enjoy your new vacancy. Do try to harm miss Milina, Luke will be glad to introduce you to what a smarter human can do with Ruby Eye's power. You might learn something."

Luke made an offended sound behind her, Milina just sighed and told him not to take it serious.

Outside, the other host was chasing down Ancient Dragons with the same sick glee and same obliviousness to the astral presence of Rangort. The host leaped for one of the dragons, wholly intent to harm it, only to be plucked away from spontaneously manifesting roots. The dragon didn't even bother defending, so small it was.

When the second host was encased safely, Zelas approached it. This was a child, one of remarkably similar disposition as the other. Both tasted like immature, sadistic, egomaniacs and since this one was trying to bite his way out of the cage, Zelas concluded it was another idiot too.

They were likely here because they liked Fibrizo as their playmate, the only thing that could possibly persuade any human to stay in the Hellmaster's presence. The one caveat was that such human loved too much, be it in a twisted way. They loved power, loved that there was a world to control, and they lacked the disposition to rise in power when they lived. They could never be brought to hate enough for Shabranigdu to awaken and they lacked the magical prowess for alternate awakenings.

"How dare you defy your lord!" the child screeched, pointing at Zelas with a tiny finger. "Free us!"

"How indeed? My favorite theory is that you cannot control chaos to follow the same pattern all the time and I'm one of those pattern breakers. Or maybe, you are not my lord and king," Zelas said with an extra layer of smugness.

Rangort stretched out a long neck so she came face to face with Zelas, now in the form of a wormlike dragon. Another act for the watching dragons, so Zelas reignited her cigarette and took a breath, every bit the image of nonchalant aristocrat.

"Chaos like how these two just happen to break out right when you're visiting here, Greater Beast?"

"Aaah, that would have been me, actually!" a shrill someone called. "Sorry I'm late!"

The two deities looked down at a small figure that climbed between two hills, a human soul who appeared as an elderly man on the plasmic plane and a red, coiling devil on the astral plane. Quite the bastardization of Shabranigdu's power, a truth easier to achieve for him as his piece had no mind.

"Oh, hello there, mister Laust," Zelas said. "How are you enjoying the afterlife?"

"Wonderful!" To enforced this, he twirled around on one foot. "Dying peacefully of old age isn't half as good as people make it sound, you have to wait so long to get to the good stuff! And I am so much more useful here nowadays. So not going to reincarnate anytime soon, I like this new Hell very much."

Zelas was very much pleased with that assessment. For a human, he was acceptable not only because he wielded a piece of Shabranigdu. He didn't buy into that 'the soul lives on' shit, he had made a true and successful effort of surviving reincarnation. Though he held less power than the Knight of Ceiphied or even the Knight of Ragradia, the Knight of Shabranigdu used what he had well.

"Explain!" Rangort demanded. Anger was just about the most of a distinct emotion e made.

"Just helping out a friend," Laust said innocently, clasping his hands behind his back as he bowed to the god. "Heard the lord Beastmaster was here and was so curious what she'd say about these hosts."

"If she was affected by Shabranigdu's call, we'd have a disaster on our hands! You fool!"

Said the pot to the spot clean kettle that only happened to be black.

"Oh, worry not, Earthlord. Who knows better what Ruby Eye can and cannot do than I do?" On the astral plane, his monstrous body smirked with five mouths and waved seventeen hands, some at the god, while others gave the middle finger to the nearby host of Shabranigdu.

Zelas chuckled despite herself and quietly extended her power to that host now that Rangort was paying attention to Laust. At a distance it took a little longer to map its energy signature, but Laust had an art to being obnoxious enough to keep Rangort occupied with arguing for a good ten minutes.

"Rangort, dear, you'll never convince that man of the need for your sense of protocol. Remember, he got along so well with Lina Inverse," she said once she no longer needed a distraction.

"—better things to do than beach resorts ... " Rangort stopped and considered what Zelas said, swallowed hir pride (thanks goodness, Zelas never could figure out whether she liked its taste or not, especially when it's something that Rangort only displayed so inconsistently) and picked up Laust. E set him down over at the group of Ancient Dragons. "Do not let him leave."

"Ah, and here I thought we'd get no privacy at all," Zelas said, swaying her hip to the right. "But really, Rangort, no beach resort? I assure you they are quite lovely once you develop the taste for them."

"I have no need for developing mortal pleasures," Rangort stated. "Tell me what you're up to, Zelas."

This was not something Zelas would walk away from without explanation, apparently.

"Let's say I want precautions. If Vrabazard shows up in Hell and kicks the hosts into Megiddo, we lose experimental potential. At the very least, I will find them back on my own. Would you have trusted me if I told you to let me drive magic into them otherwise?"

"No."

"Well then, that is your fault. Be thankful for mister Laust that he placed reason ahead of your instinct to resent me. You'll be finding my more reliable than you think."

It was a feeble excuse, and she smelled it did not fall into accepting earth. More spice was needed.

"Besides, how quickly do you believe the other retainers will act, now they have noticed the gods are planning something? The gods have never taken the first initiative and I assure you that Deep Sea Dolphin is a very sharp mind. She has a thing for emotionally exploitable boys, she'd love to steal away one from Hell."

E still doubted, for as far as Zelas could smell, but without an accompanying face she couldn't read more. "I assume cleaning up those dragons and figuring out the host's identities is not the only thing you came here to do?"

Zelas smiled a little wider. The line had been bitten. "No, as a matter of fact, there is another little thing regarding an Ancient Dragon with his adoptive mother."

Beat.

Oh, come on!

"The one who adopted the reborn Valgaav," she flatly said. "You will have heard me mention him."

"I'm aware of it. A wonder they let it live, given the likelihood of a miserable future. Killing it right now would leave it happiest in Hell. What about it?"

"Xelloss isn't making much progress, not quick enough. Perhaps the child can. He doesn't consciously remember anything, but a lot of those strange patterns remain, he'll learn quickly. It would fit quite well into the shield protocols I am developing."

"Hmm. You are certain he doesn't have ideas from the past life?"

"None the least. He is very loyal to Filia Ul Copt. I say we speed up things, relocate a few things. How about I help you bring those things back to their prison, and then we shall speak?"

"I don't need your help," Rangort said.

Zelas shrugged and leaned back, just in time for her wolf to run up behind her. She scratched him behind the ear and they purred together as they watched the humorless god go abouts hir way. The time was spent by Zelas mentally putting together the new pieces and figuring out how to play Rangort further.

Megiddo, gods, devils, all deities and little world walls. She wasn't certain where the next unexpected thing to throw her plan awry would come from, but it was likely something much smaller than them.

Rangort returned soon, neither smug nor satisfied with hir quick work. They changed the plan, and Zelas was sent away.

On her way back, she passed through Fibrizo's canyon was a last minute errand.

Fibrizo's burns lined the dark walls, more erratic ones across what had once been systematic, smooth carving. He had lost his reason, had done useless things. Zelas defined her projection to feel small sensations in the fingertips, it was like his madness given form.

To raise power against the Lord of Nightmares, to not accept that she might want anything but destruction.

She did not want to imagine how he must have felt when the Mother Of All Things seemed to betray him, but she imagined it anyway. It was her safeguard against similar arrogant mistakes. She would no go down the way he had done, blind to what was truly happening in the worlds and beyond.

The method to his madness had begun during the War of the Devil's Fall. All five retainers knew their lord, but they had never truly seen him. For the other four, Lei Magnus was their first meeting. Fibrizo had grown restless shortly after, unstable to the point where Lei Magnus took Gaav to war despite Fibrizo being more powerful.

Zelas had a theory that Fibrizo had realized that even a complete Shabranigdu could not break down the walls of the world, or perhaps he'd looked too closely at the way chimerization corrupted. Whatever he had learned, it had eaten at him.

How many hours had Fibrizo wasted in the bowels of Hell, testing the power of the hosts? How many hosts had he known, had he tried to torture into hating so much that Ruby Eye would awaken, only for them to simply fall into Megiddo?

How hard had it been for him to feign friendship to hosts that would soon learn that he could not care for anything, before finding and keeping those two? He might well have met a thousand incarnations of hosts. Children that had died too early, people that had taken their life to prevent an awakening. Every time, he'd have been forced to ask why something as simple as a human could contain a deity's power.

Then there was Gaav, merged with the soul and corrupted by it, yet without losing power. His progeny, Valgaav, similarly in favor of existence and bring along a conscience to boot. Souls did not break, devils did.

Reason would have whispered every time, _what if the system is in favor of existence_? You see my child, there _exists_ a principle of balance.

The Lord of Nightmares before him, uncorrupted yet still with mercy for the world. He had made up his own explanation, and imagined wrong.

Questions could save one or drive one mad. Zelas had rigged her coin for the former.

**· · · · · · ·**


	3. Filia's Compass

**· · · · · · ·**

If it wasn't for her family, she wouldn't be doing this. She was a teleporting dragon, for crying out loud; she could handle herself.

She couldn't handle a town and a vulnrable family together. Unless she locked them up, she could not protect them well enough, not from the lingering distrust and not from the mobs that followed. Finding a new home was safer and easier, so much so it had almost become routine (a hated one).

Across the years, she had tried several different tactics. Tell people up front who she was, keep it a secret and spoil it with an accidental tail or wing, buy a large mansion and keep separate from the crowd, try to keep a poorly veiled secret as the friendly neighborhood witch ... the last one had gone fine, up until the dragon stunt from two weeks ago.

Spontaniously everyone had always been suspicious about that mysterious lady with her minions. Yesterday, the first rock came flying through a window. The neighbors had seen "nothing" despite having been on their porches. While shopping, Filia had heard whispers of a wanted criminal by the dragons, perhaps the second holy order was to be notified? No, others said, let's alert the governor instead.

If it had been an option she would have just teleported away with everyone, but her navigation wasn't much better than her transformation control. For her power to work safely she needed to be in an area with high magic vibrations that she could feel, if she wanted to know where she was and where to go. Otherwise, she was limited to things within her line of sight. This meant there was a journey to prepare for. Her shopping trip had been to stock up.

Now in the early morning, she sat hunched over the crystal ball she used to channel Vision spells between her and her company.

"We have everything under control, my lady," her director said. "The money has been transferred to Kundumin, where you are expected within two days. The weather forecast for the north is unfortunately a wild guess, but the seaside past the desert should allow for safe flying in the following week."

"That is good enough. If the weather changes beyond that, we'll know the way. But has there been no word yet from Sailoon?"

"Not if we apply the safety measures that you recommended us. Sailoon's barriers have intensified greatly in the past two weeks for some reason. We dared not experiment, we are no old dragons experienced with magic."

Filia nodded. "Thank you for at least attempting. Untill we speak again, mister Argon, and thank you for your work."

"Always a pleasure, my lady," he said with a salute. She saluted back. Neither of them were of the military, but he had been. A defector who had disagreed with the quiet machinations of government as executed by the second holy order, Filia had hired him on a whim and a loose leaf.

Next was one more call to make. Filia chanted the Vision spell again and pulled the crystal's energies looser. If Sailoon was difficult to contact even for her best factory, Zephyria would ... no, Zephyria worked fine, she noted with relief. With a few seconds delay, the image of an auburn haired woman appeared, leaned casually on her arms and her eyes hidden behind low bangs. A careless smirk was on her lips.

"Hey, Filia," Luna said. "You're early, did ya get a particularly noxious customer? Bet ya it can't beat the fellows I got over the floor the other day."

Despite her own mood, Filia smiled. Her favorite method to cope with small stress was to speak to Luna Inverse, who had oh so familiar experience with being a supernaturally powered entity that nonetheless had to put up with the customer always being right.

"I'm afraid I had far more difficult customers to deal with the other day."

"Did Clown bring packmates again?"

"No, there were dragons." With a few quick sentences, she got Luna up to date.

Luna's smirk dropped and tilted her head, so one red eye appeared from behind her bangs. "Damn. All the way down there? There's dragons making allegiances with nations up here, they came by Zephyria too. Those fellows I mentioned? Scaly asses trying to recruit me. Pfft! Kicked them out off course."

"Do you know anything of Sailoon?"

Luna shrugged. "Nope, but I bet little Amelia won't like what they're preaching. Filia, I don't think you should find another cute little town. Go somewhere safer."

"I'm planning to head north already, to Sailoon. Val is strong, but I want to avoid him needing to fight off any golden dragons at all costs."

"Hmm. If it ever becomes necessary, hop over to me, or at least Liliane if it doesn't work to my place. Sailoon should work for your navigation, they're the suckers I pick up most prayers from, whether I like it or not."

"I'll keep that in mind. Thank you, miss Luna."

"Don't mention it. Seriously. Especially not in prayer. Oh, and once you're gone, destroy this ball. It's probably how they were drawn to your city."

As much as she regretted it, she followed the advice before leaving the house. The shard were left behind. Luna knew better than anyone about holy magic's principles.

It wasn't raining anymore, but the roof drained slowly due to all the leafs cluttering the drain. A persistent drop nagged on the surface of the full rain barrel below it. Filia had always hated that sound, but it was one of those tiny nuisances that she just knew she was going to miss once it was gone.

Gingerly Filia closed the back door and turned the key. The door clicked shut and she bent key into a small loop, which she tossed in the barrel. It would take too long to sell the house. With a brisk pace, she left it behind her.

She told herself she walked swiftly to fight the cold of the morning, but every little sound was like the start of a mob, and the crackle of hearths reminded her of a burning house.

For all her worries, she reached the walls of the city without any trouble. The fields stretched peacefully across the hills, covered by pale mist. It was a day of rest, there were no early farmers. Filia let the fog swallow her before the forest did.

Huddled in a clearing was her family. She set down the items she had taken along — four packs the size of hay bundles — kissed the sleepy Val and Molly on the foreheads and disappeared behind a bush to transform.

Once a dragon, she nodded at Gravos and the vulpen. In a practiced effort, they tied all the luggage on her back using a makeshift harness. In the middle of the luggage circle, the group would sit, shielded from wind and lethal drops. Filia did have practice with catching falling people, but it was always best to play safe.

"Everyone set?"

"We are, sister," Jillas said. Seven years and he still wasn't past that habit, Filia had long since given up.

She couldn't resist circling the city to savor the last sight she'd have of it. This had been their home for almost four years and had been everything Filia wanted out of life : a small cozy space, lots of family and friends and lots of chances to do something for the world.

At least those chances weren't entirely lost. Their company wasn't dissolved in the slightest, they'd just have to change address again. She swept away, turning nostalgia to steel.

Filia stayed low to the lands, avoiding to higher clouds and freezing air; she had a spell for warmth in place but it drained her magic so she avoided pressuring it. Once it was noon, the altitudes would be warmer and there would be more people outdoors, then she would ascend. For now she just flew north, but in a while directions would be needed. She would have to get them the mundane way.

Ahead of them was a journey that hopefully would just be dull. The dangers of it were not in the form of natural predators, or even temperature. Her real concern was Val.

Like her own, his human projection was imperfect. Val's legacy from his former life shone through in that he already knew how to transform at this absurdly young age, despite knowing no other spell, but he had all the concentration of a child. If he fell asleep, there was a serious risk that he'd suddenly sprout limb or worse, shift to full weight while staying small. So much force concentrated on a small spot was the equivalent of being pierced by a blade, so keeping him awake during flight was an imperative.

On the evening third day, it was one of those dusks that colored everything old gold, the wind was not harsh and perhaps the warmth spell worked a little too well, perhaps Filia was a little too content. Everyone else fell asleep, so he did as well.

Before Filia knew good and well, the rib directly below Val snapped. Her cry mingled with the sharp increase of wind as she fell down. She could not even flip around, he weighed so much he threw off her balance.

"Val, wake up!" Gravos and Jillas both screamed. The next moment, there was a loud _whack_, and then a poof accompanied by light. The weight fell off.

The next blink of her eyes, a thick feathered coat swooped below her. On reflex she stretched her hind legs, catching the impact without further broken bones. As the horizon aligned again with her direction, she looked around. Her remaining passengers were jostled, but nobody had fallen off. Relief flooded her and remained for a good ten seconds before she realized that Val was _carrying _her.

She barely covered his back. Her forearms clutched feathers bigger than her head, and the wing that smoothly moved aside of her cast a shadow enough to cover whenever it crossed the sun.

An adult Ancient Dragon, just like that, and not even a hint of a transformation spell. On top of that, some power was at work to dull the wind's effect, because the whistling was gone she clearly heard the confused sounds of the rest of her family.

"Sister, you alright?" Jillas asked, his voice shaky but also elated.

With a groan, Filia pushed herself up a little. "Not quite. I'm going to have to heal myself."

"Hold on for a bit, mom, I'll see whether I can land," Val said with a heavy voice that she barely recognized. His head turned sideways, she saw a golden eye. It was so familiar it drove away any ill ease. This was still her child.

"Be careful to not land on a slope or a breakable ledge," Gravos said.

Val dipped lower and swooped across the tops until Gravos pointed out a stable enough peak. It would have to do. They were well in sight, but if any dragons came here, they were likely sent by a medium anyway. Hiding low would be useless and had a greater risk of running into humans.

With surprising ease Val landed on the top, where he stretched out his wing for his passengers to step off. The shield that kept the wind back remained in place. Filia waited for the others to get off and Gravos to unpack, Val stayed perfectly still the entire time.

It was all so convenient. Val had only been the size of a dog mere days ago, he couldn't possibly be this large without some concrete magic linking him to his past. Even more so than the fact he could perform transformation magic at a ridiculously young age, when only high ranked dragons could master this spell. Val had been a ranked adult when he'd turned into Valgaav, she knew.

What if his mind caught up to his body?

She'd have to ask her son what he knew about this sudden transformation, but she was afraid of the answer. Oblivious to these worries, it was Jillas who broke the silence. Eagerly he led Palu and Molly before Val's claws and pointed up. "See, Palu? That's why I always call him lord! He is the strongest dragon in the world!"

"He's pretty! But how can we play like this?" Molly asked in a quiet voice.

"I can shrink down again later," Val rumbled. "I think. I'm not sure what happened, I just knew I had to be larger and it did."

"That's cause you're a special dragon, right?" Palu asked.

Val nodded, turned his head to Filia. "Mom, do you have any idea how I did this?"

"I ... no, I don't. I know almost nothing about Ancient Dragons, I'm sorry. It's not usual for Golden Dragons, at least." Sometimes, she sorely wished she _had_ told Val about has past as a world destroying chimera, because that would have made this conversation go much easier. It was just that the actually telling him part was so hard.

Gravos had finished plucking all luggage from her back and Filia was about to get off when a familiar sensation crawled up her spine.

"My my, what a show. Not afraid any hostile dragons might notice you?"

There was a collective groan from everyone, but Filia killed the urge to call him garbage. Seven years of practice backed her up. Garbage was for more dire situations so he couldn't act like she was chronically rude.

She felt shoes on her nape of her neck. He actually had the nerve to sit down on her! She would have slapped him off with her tail if so much movement wouldn't hurt. If he was here, he probably had followed them at distance for a while and had gotten closer to feed. She was going to deny him that too.

Gravos helped her set the bone back in place, after which Filia walked a short distance to cast Resurrection. The distance was so that the borrowed energy came from the environment rather than her family. She used her tail to channel the magic, as her arms were not versatile enough in dragon form.

The others set camp between Val's massive forearms, a small fire already started. Xelloss hovered around them, peeking over shoulders until Elena finally threw up her hands. "What do you want?"

"Oh, I was just curious where you all were going at this late hour."

"North," Filia said. She didn't bother speaking loudly, he could hear her well enough.

"Are you sure you're going the right way?"

"Actually, no. Noticed these clouds around us, Evil Cone Thingy? I'm just waiting till mom feels better, then we'll figure it out," Val said.

"Well, you've been going wrong before she fell."

"Maybe we're going somewhat northway, not directly north," Jillas said.

"Oh really now? And where exactly is this variant of northway now?"

"Why not tell us it's a secret, Xelloss? That would be so helpful," Filia said.

"I'm afraid that even with my skill and experience, keeping the position of the north a secret for a decent period is beyond my ability. Therefore, I care not for guarding it. You'll want to go that way," he said, pointing a little sideways of the direction she'd been heading.

Filia looked in the direction and then back at him.

"It won't be the first time you set me up to walk into the wrong town for your own amusement."

"With your insistence of alluding to this, I rather doubt you found it such an objectionable experience. Now, I'll admit it would be entertaining to repeat that, but I'll be on a mission in a few hours. It wouldn't benefit me in any way."

That much was true. Xelloss was fond of discord if he was around to consume the ensuing negative miasma, but didn't care for causing long lasting trouble purely for the sake of being wicked. Otherwise they'd never have gotten a cannon factory off the ground, let alone would they be stocking the country of white magic. It was one of Xelloss's peculiar things, he let enemies have things. The Gorun Nova, the demonsblood talismen, the Claire Bible (if only long enough to learn the Ragna Blade) and even her son, who he knew would grow up to be a powerful enemy to devils. This was one of the things she held onto to see him as a person now, even if his presence was a source of constant stress.

Off course, that didn't mean she could expect the full answer.

"So if there is no town, are there any castles, religious orders, cities or garrisons in training that way? After all, I don't know what a few hours means to you. Perhaps you'll stick around till morning for a feast."

He smiled a little wider. "You're getting better at being no easy fun. Yes, there is a city straight ahead. They've got cannons too, are you sure you're not curious about it?"

"No, not at all. We already know my cannons are best," Jillas said proudly, thumping a fist on his chest.

"Oh really? Your cannons still can't do anything to a Zannafar, ever."

"Oh, I'll bet you that my missiles can!"

Jillas could rival Filia when it came to defending his art, something he'd taken over from Filia herself. Normally Xelloss wasn't interested in arguing with Jillas, but today, well, it was another convenient little thing.

It didn't slip her notice that Xelloss was pointedly _not_ commenting on Val's peculiar abilities. This did a greater service to her than anything he might say. Val knew how old Xelloss was, he'd assume Xelloss thought it was normal he could do this and was just being annoying by not sharing information. Val lost interest in questions and started grooming his wings.

There probably was some ulterior motive to Xelloss's covert help, off course. It also had not slipped her notice that Xelloss was around a lot more, and with a lot more attention to Val, ever since the battle of three years ago. Still, she was friends with both Inverse sisters and selfish motives were something she was bound to tolerate. Plus, Xelloss had this certain accusation that she loved to undermine.

When Xelloss had managed to thoroughly confuse Jillas about what they'd been talking (artistic integrity had gotten involved, she resolved to get back at him for that), he floated over to sit down on her back. He was about to start, but thrown off balance when she whispered a soft, "Thanks."

With a huff, he looked away. Perhaps he'd been preparing a lecture about selfish dragons, now preemptively undermined. Filia couldn't help but take some smug satisfaction in that even as he floated after her, doubtlessly preparing some comeback.

Now her healing was nearly done, she felt a lot better. Val stopped grooming and expectantly looked at her. Carefully, Filia crawled over his arm and the huddled people sitting there. There was a little space between the campfire, allowing her to sit in the crook between the ground and his neck if she leaned on his arm. It was almost a reveral of role, like she was the child again. She pushed back memories of a long gone family and settled against Val.

This was far cozier a scene than she had expected this journey to bring. Xelloss seemed to think so too, because she felt that small drop in power that indicated he was about to leave. Normally she would have welcomed his departure, but when he nearly flickered away this time she snatched her tail around him.

He could have dodged that easily, yet she had him. Needing an excuse to stay?

"Oh no you don't. If there are in fact dragons in the area, you can stay here and let your aura scare them away," she said. "You still owe me for all the things you put me through."

He cracked an eye open and raised a finger, "I must commend you for creative solution for dealing with your underdeveloped true form. It's nice you're finally embracing your nature as glorified lizard."

She twisted him upside down to whack him to the ground, but the satisfaction of ramming his head down was denied, he just turned into a cone right away. There was an obnoxious laughter, at which Filia shook her head to throw her hair out of her face.

Val knew what game she called for. It was Amelia's Happy Thoughts time. He gave her a big lick, which initiated a grooming session full of warm and fuzzy feelings. Grooming wasn't part of golden dragon habits, but for the heavily feathered Val it was a necessary instinct. Knowing that made it less mortifying, so she let Val do it. It was actually pretty pleasant.

Elena joined in by initiating a song of her homeland. Stir, fry, and add some good food. It wasn't a mystery anymore to Filia how Lina, Gourry and Amelia were happy so easily.

The cone whined and made pathetic attempts to get away, but didn't manage. Somehow.

Sometimes she thought Xelloss faked this weakness, because honestly ... it made no sense. He had no qualms about ice cream parlors despite the people enjoying their life there. In fact, Gourry consistently thought life was wonderful since he was with Lina and too oblivious to worry about anything. Xelloss shouldn't be able to stand him, yet was largely indifferent to the guy.

Xelloss didn't lie, but that only meant his words did not state untruths. He was just fine with acting in a way that gave the wrong ideas and she did not believe for an instant that he couldn't just withdraw to the astral plane.

When she woke up the next morning and he was still there, again perched on her back as if she were a chair, she was more certain than ever of this. Hours counted up to several days. Xelloss stayed with them all the way to the shore of the Desert of Destruction, claiming she had "invited" him by pinning him down.

This was perhaps safer, but also irritating. Filia was better at not losing her temper, but not so much at staying silent. It took less than half a day before Gravos considered playing "throw bombs at mountaintops" with Val and Palu because apparently the explosions were healthier noise than the constant arguing. Xelloss helpfully pointed out that that wouldn't stop supernatural creatures from being able to talk, since they could just raise their voice. And then he encouraged Val to fly down and start some avalanches by screaming in full transformed shape. Filia warned him to stay small, just in case anyone saw him, and he obeyed. Xelloss invented the "Boring Dragons" song.

It was a front row seat to the opera of stress, in more ways than one. Underneath the obnoxiousness, Filia could no longer deny that there were plans involving her son. Xelloss was keeping an eye on them, most likely under orders of Zelas. Any speculation she could draw from that was not very nice.

Val ended up taking the foxes for the occasional flight for fun, but also to increase his control. After the near fatal incident, he didn't want to risk hurting her again. He was very good at manifesting only his wings, allowing him to stay small while still having the benefits of flight and increased strength. That was a skill beyond Filia's level already, but she didn't tell him. Let him think it was natural, so he could be happy, and could become a new person without being dictated by the past.

It would be too cruel if he was reborn just to remember the past, but she wouldn't put it past a god. At first Filia had considered the rebirth a mercy, but what if it wasn't? The more Val showed unusual qualities, the more she sought an explanation that was least threatening. Perhaps it was purely a side effect of the creation magic that progressed out of fusion magic. Perhaps Volphied had just resonated with this and had acted on her natural pro existence instinct. Perhaps she'd find out sooner than she wanted.

To her right a blissfully oblivious Val tumbled in circles, Molly firmly held in his arms. The children laughed, unconcerned of falling down or falling to the past. Just for the heck of it, Xelloss became a swarm of tiny black cones and announced they were now playing dodge, much to Val's joy. Filia looked over her shoulder and saw that Jillas had just as little worry as Val did, though Elena watched with trepidation. Xelloss was probably getting his snack out of Elena's concern.

"They're safe, Val won't let her fall, nor will Xelloss," Filia said.

"I know, but I can't help but worry," she said. "Perhaps too much."

Filia silently agreed. Then again, she thought she was pretty justified in fretting. She had two creatures of mass destruction settled in her casual life, for crying out loud. Albeit, the way they goofed around that was a less dramatic thought than it ought to be.

At the point where the journey passed most closely to Wolfpack Island, Xelloss left without a word. The island was too far away to see, but she couldn't help but glance in the direction every now and then. It wasn't so unlikely that right now, the beast devils were doing something far less harmless than playing with children.

Once they reached the Alliance of Coastal States, they took a stop in a nearby city for reasons of stocking. Filia wasn't exactly hungry, but that didn't mean she couldn't enjoy a good meal. Or tea. During the journey she hadn't brought out her tea set from sub space at any given time because of Xelloss; he went through tea like mages went through food. The restaurant did object to consumption of brought-in food, but Filia just plopped out her tail and kindly explained she wasn't costing the restaurant any money because they sold no tea.

The restaurant really was a lovely little place, very acoustic and rustic. Fish nets on the walls were perhaps a little overdone, but who cared? The seafood was fresh and arrange in inventive ways, and even that bread basket was just adorable.

She was just about to take her first sip of much needed tea when the entire tea set broke to pieces.

Just like that. No clumsy waiters, accidental transformations, noxious devils or stray bombs were involved.

Filia spent about three seconds staring in horror, then she screamed.

"Please, boss, keep it down, people are staring," Gravos muttered.

"My handmade one of a kind tea set! Do you have any idea how long I had to save to get the money for it?"

"Oh yes, we know."

"We also remember the journey to get it."

"We have plenty of money now," Palu said.

"That's not the point! These aren't made anymore! It's ..."

... a curious way for shards to fall. She'd been a diviner for long enough to recognize patterns.

She prodded the pieces once before hovering her finger over the pattern. There was a circle around a strangle squiggly pile and three letters in dust of an ancient script. All were variants of movement oriented around the pile. More importantly, there was the trace of a divine energy. Not Vrabazard's, but it was definitely a god's message.

"Sister, what's up?" Jillas asked.

Filia crossed her arms and sat back with a sigh.

"Seven years of silence," she whispered as she closed her eyes.

Living without being a priestess hadn't been too hard. She had Val and the others now, whatever spirituality she had gained from devotion wasn't truly far. Yet the closest she'd been to divinity in the past seven years were those moments she channeled the power of Ceiphied, the Eternal Queen and Luna Inverse. The former was impersonal, the latter two faithless and happy with it. Filia felt less aversion to subjecting to the gods, but nowadays it came with doubt. They had not remembered her, so she had believed for years.

And then just like that, the gods were back in her life like they'd never left. Not even a _hello, and sorry for the absence._

Filia opened her eyes again. The heaped pieces in the circle's center appeared to be some sort of landscape, mountains perhaps, but she did not recognize them.

"Is everything alright?" a waitress asked. Oh, right, she'd been screaming.

"Can you please tell me what this resembles?"

"Those appear to be the Kataart mountains," the woman said after some thoughts.

Oh, crap. Filia did not like where this was heading.

Amelia had suggested she moved to Kataart at the end of the quest, Filia had decided against it. Amelia was likely biased since she owed Milgazia her life, and though she wouldn't ever believe Amelia meant poorly, Filia couldn't risk taking Val into a swarm of golden dragons no matter how good the track record of their leader was. Too complicated, too much lies would be needed.

And now there was a god who wanted her to go _there_.

"Don't go, miss Filia. You have said yourself that the gods do not care much to meddle with mortal business, or would you fear their revenge if you refuse?" Elena asked.

"That's exactly why I'm worried. Normally, they don't _bother _unless invoked. If they come out and give signs, then it's bound to be important. I don't want to, but still, the gods are benign if they do choose to act."

"You're not going to listen, right, mom? We were going to Sailoon! I was going to meet Amelia and Zelgadis!"

"We _are_ going to Sailoon," Filia said. "Just ... we may also go the the Kataart mountains."

This broke her family into a chorus of objections, but to Filia it felt muffled as she felt the holy energy. A god's touch felt pleasant to a dragon in the same way a devil's presence sent chills up the spine. If ever so subtly, it was something that compelled her to give heed to the command.

So Filia found herself undecisive yet again. Out the restaurant back into the air, and on.

By the time they reached the borders of Sailoon, she still hadn't figure out what to do. She was so indecisive that she kept flying on a bit just to have more time to think, and like this they reached the end of the day, and another day, and again, until she reached the other border without having angled off towards the capital.

And from there on, she kept on flying a few more days, until she landed near Gyria, capital of the kingdom of Dils.

It may have had something to do with her tea leaf container exploding to form another sign. More strongly though, trusting the gods was something that came naturally to Filia beyond being a priestess. She was a golden dragon, after all.

The Dils kingdom had a sore history with demons infiltrating it. Lina and Gourry had been involved with Dynast Grausherra's plot of starting another Resurrection war, ultimately setting free the kingdom and later destroying the piece of Shabranigdu. During this time they had traveled with Milgazia and gotten to know him better, another point towards not being entirely fearful.

But first, she wanted to scoop out the situation; she had grown a healthy distrust of lacking thorough information about dragon clans. Perhaps hear first what the humans said. Besides, divine omens tended to be awfully vague, and there had been no route included in her rudely delivered message. If Valwin or Rangort were going to break her tea set to talk to her, they could have at least made it more useful.

The moment they stepped into the capital, Jillas tapped her on the arm.

"Hey sister, smell that?"

"No, what?"

"Other dragons," Palu said.

"Are you sure?"

"As sure as I can be, boss. They're down that way," Jillas said.

"Lead us there," she said. "And keep your guns set."

They passed several crowded streets, lost their way the alleys, found the main streets and lost their way there. Filia and Gravos climbed a wall or two with foxes on her back, but they eventually found their way to a wide court of what might have been the castle grounds. Hey, it wasn't _her_ fault these places weren't monsterproof in the slightest. And really, these guards were terribly absent.

After passing a hallway with pillars, they looked across a courtyard bristling with life and tanks. Specifically, they looked like those designed by Pokota — Amelia had sent them sketches once to ask whether Jillas could make anything similar — but with less obvious animal motifs. There had a sleeker look and dragon traits, but still looked out of place with the traditional stone look of the palace and its people.

From the magic of it, many of the people walking between them were in fact dragons, and others were elves. On the sidelines of the plaza humans cluttered, but they remained at a safe distance. Filia's company drew a lot of their attention, but she only needed to stick out her tail and they'd bow and scurry away.

From the looks of it, the dragons and elves were lending the humans magical help in some sort of war act, which surprised Filia.

She approached one of the elves, who was stacking ammo near one of the entrance gates.

"Excuse me, I only recently arrived. Why are there so many dragons and elves here?"

The elf gave her an odd look, then glanced at the group behind them. She heard one of the other elves speculate about about newly hired servants or foreigners who were too lazy to read their invite letters.

"You can tell there's dragons here?" Filia was glad there wasn't a follow up on why she was even standing here if she didn't know what was up.

"I can smell'em," Jillas said.

"Ah," the elf said as she raised her nose a little. "Well, there is no need to worry. These are all golden and black dragons, servants of Aqualord Ragradia. They have only the best intentions for humans. Surely someone in the palace has told you this, miss ..."

"Filia Ul Copt, and these are—"

"Is there anything else you want?"

"Are any elders here?"

Irritated, the elf pointed to a wall at the court's other end. "Lord Azonge, leader of the black dragons of the Kataart Mountains."

Atop a long stone stairway stood a blackhaired man in his thirties, dressed in off-white clothing, with a white cape trailing behind. Surrounding him were several blond and black haired men, all formed human but just a touch to too handsome and clean.

Filia had to do a double take, there was hardly a wrinkle in sight.

"That is the oldest black dragon?" she asked. "What happened to the Elders?"

"He is an elder," the elf said.

"But he looks so young!"

The elf frowned. "Old age is not a fear for the dragons under Ragradia's legacy, they have learned to remain young."

Now that was curious. The elders of her clan most definitely had looked _old_. The spirits of the Ancient Dragons had also looked old. Was Ragradia something of an eccentric amongst the dragons?

"Would you lead me to him? I'd like to—"

"No. If we let any curious human speak to him, he would never get a chance to work."

Filia lifted one of the orbs of her headdress, revealing a pointy ear. Honestly, she would have expected the hat to have given her away anyway, but apparently customs were different here.

"You're an elf?"

"No! I'm a golden dragon! I come from the south. Once I was a priestess of the first holy order of Flare Lord Vrabazard, before the Dark Star incident brought an end to my clan." Perhaps a little leverage was in place.

"Ah! Off course I will introduce you."

The elf put down the crate he'd been holding and led her to the front of the mansion. As they approached and she heard the conversation, Filia's mood fell. They spoke of "the humans" rather than "our allies" or mentioning names. She stopped her family at the bottom of the stairway, walking up alone.

"Lord Azonge, this is Filia Ul Copt from the first holy order of Vrabazard." Filia didn't like how she left out ex priestess, because this implied she still served religiously.

An untrained smile stretched on the dragon's human face.

"Ah. Very welcome, Filia Ul Copt. Have you come to aid in our efforts?"

"Actually, I don't know what your efforts are. I was on my way to the Kataart mountains to meet with lord Milgazia, with whom I share a friend. While passing by, I was curious of what's going on here."

"We are in the middle of organizing an alliance with the humans," he said proudly. "I presume you've heard of the issues the kingdom of Dils has had with devils?"

Filia nodded, and noted the elder spoke loudly, so it echoed across the courtyard. It was a show.

"We believe the best way to prevent devils from furthermore exploiting this kingdom in their efforts to revive pieces of Shabranigdu, we must be the ones to support the humans."

"That is very noble of you," Filia said with practice curtsy, even if her jaded self reminded her there might be arrogant reasons underlying.

"I will arrange an escort for you so you may meet my friend as soon as possible. The devils are stirring in the mountains, doubtlessly they have caught wind of our movement."

"But you can beat them back, right?" a small person said from below. Val and Molly had come running up the stairs. Val was weary, but Molly looked up full of admiration at the fancy clothes and imposing figures.

Azonge's expression grew more distant.

"Yours?" he asked Filia sternly. "Unusual traveling company."

"They're my family."

He snorted. He actually snorted! Filia couldn't kill a twitch of her mouth.

"No beastmen here. You will have to leave them behind," Azonge said. He shoved Molly away with his foot. The small fox stagged back to the edge of the stairway, lost her balance and tumbled down.

Val jumped after her at once, catching before she hit the first step. Curling to a ball, he rolled down the stairway. Gravos caught him there. Almost proudly, Val uncurled and held out Molly to Elena. She was alright, if on the verge of tears.

Filia breathed a sigh of relief, which faded into a glare as she reached below her skirt for Lord Mace. She didn't care who the dragon in front of her was, not anymore, as she thrust the spikes in his face.

"You apologize right now!"

"Put that away. Wanton violence is unbecoming of a dragon."

"Wanton? _You_ shoved a little child down a stairway!"

"Beastmen are flexible."

Lord Mace impacted with his head and toppled him over. With a graceful arc, he careened into the wall behind him. Tiny whiny elves danced around his head as he fell out of a self-shaped hole.

Immediately, the two nearest dragons moved to help him stand up. No such concern was given to Val and Molly when they fell _without _comedy physics. Filia had a dark moment where she considered hitting him again, but in a way that drew blood.

"What is wrong with you?" he snarled at her.

"Oh, I'm just trying to demonstrate what it feels like to be pushed around," she said, dismissively waving her hand.

"You're an uncontrollable madwoman!"

"Perhaps once I was," she said as she walked down the stairs, not sparing him a second glance. This was less grace than it was years of experience with knowing when to walk away before she really exploded. "Never mind that escort."

It really shouldn't have surprised her. It was a universally understood thing amongst golden dragons that elven or humanoid form was the only acceptable shrink size. Her own people have been no different, except they exclusively favored elven form. Why not lupen or any other of the anthropomorphic creatures? It was racism that she'd never really thought about before the Dark Star incident.

She should have gone straight for Sailoon. While the country was no more inclusive of non-humans, she knew for a fact the royalty had an open mind. That brimming sense she had to follow the god's command wasn't strong enough to make her risk going into a devil and dragon infested mountain range.

On the other hand, the collapsing gate on their way out did a fine job by dropping blessed stones right on Filia's head. It left her in a heap on the ground, and her family and other pedestrians in a wide circle.

In sheer rage, Filia stood up and maced a piece of rubble on her tail.

The splinters fall into a most peculiar pattern, one far less arcane. A big fat arrow pointed to the Kataart Mountains, and a broken one to Sailoon. That one was surrounded by storm clouds.

"Fine!" Filia snapped at the earth.

**· · · · · · ·**


	4. Milgazia's Arrangements

**· · · · · · ·**

Milgazia liked nothing better than to wake into his peaceful mountain range. Across the years he'd become attached to its serene silence, to the cold blue mornings that greeted him regardless of season.

So perhaps technically it wasn't _his_ mountain range. Most of its airspace was controlled by devils, even if the earth brimmed with Ragradia's magic. Devils didn't really count at population, though. Strictly speaking, they didn't even count as persons. That made him and Azonge the leaders of the dominant species, and thus the lords. If only in his mind, this allowed him to play with the notion of a peaceful home.

He certainly didn't have it in real life. Nowadays he often woke to a cold blue morning full of roaring. With one long yawn, he stretched his wings and tail and walked out of his grove. A group of five dragons and six elves had gathered in the field. In their midst was a whirl of white strings, a Zenaffa armor commanded by one of the elves. The prisoner, an injured d lesser devil.

"Uncle!" Memphis darted across the field towards him. "Those dragons are saying this one isn't good enough, it'll combust soon and they don't want to waste time transporting it."

"Let me have a look first," Milgazia said.

The lesser devil was the typical horns and batwings variety, and wasn't even coherent enough to speak. However, one never knew with devils. As devils did not desire existence, the only thing holding them together was their sense of ego. Most devils dealt fine with captivity by focusing on revenge, but once they figured out the dragons kept them not for power, but as fuel and experiment, revenge wasn't enough for most. They combusted before they could be brought to the spot where their energy could be harvested.

This one just sat there, glaring with pupilless eyes. Milgazia had a number of questions at hand to determine its likelihood of survival. He was just about to begin asking when a peak fell down, broke through the barrier and onto the devil. Dragons and elves jumped back, some fell.

With a few wingstrokes, Milgazia cleared the dust and carefully moved over. He looked up, down, up again, then down once more.

He was in the middle of the valley. The closest peak was a few kilometers away to the east. The presence of the devil was fading away, and so was something else.

"Well ... that answers our question," one of the elves said. "Let's go home."

"Wait," Milgazia said. He approached the peak, laying a clawed hand on it. What he felt confirmed the holy guidance that had led this peak here despite the odds. "This is a god's sign."

Memphis tilted her head, squinting. "This? Really? It looks kinda ... how do I put it ... rude. It cost us our test subject!"

"Memhy! You shall not question the decision of the gods. There is a definite holy energy about this. We won't be needing that capture."

"Didn't mean to disrespect the gods, uncle. I just wasn't sure it was them talking. So what else is it saying?"

On cue, the peak exploded into an array of symbols and signs.

"We are to reoccupy the old temple and move our efforts there. It shall be fortified from prying eyes and our needs shall be met. So says Earthlord Rangort."

"Earthlord Rangort? Are you really sure?"

"Earthlord Rangort tends to be blunt like this," Milgazia said. "He is the most talkative of the gods."

"This is talkative?" Memphis asked.

"Why, off course. Earthlord Rangort is less likely to give us a short prophecy and will instead direct us in more immediate and frequent ways. Is that not evident?" Milgazia said, gesturing at the pile of rubble.

"Eheheh ... off course," Memphis said.

"Why so doubtful, Memphy?"

"I don't know much about gods, that I'll admit. I'd just imagined them to be a little more ... mystical."

The dragons all chuckled, to the confusion of the elves.

"It varies per god," Milgazia said. "Now let us dwell on more urgent matters. We will rebuild the old temple of Ragradia."

"For whom?"

That was a good question. Since the demise of Aqualord Ragradia, priesthood no longer served a purpose. The barrier had prevented any other gods from being reached, dragons were not all that interested in materialism to begin with and humans didn't come here anymore. Why bother rebuilding it?

But of Earthlord Rangort saw a purpose, so it would be done. Memphis joined him in the flight there.

East of Dragon's Peak lay a mountain with a temple ruin at its peak. It was as neglected as its god's absence implied. The surface area was entirely destroyed during the War of the Devil's Fall. Cracked walls and tiles were all that were left, no statue had been left whole and every piece of gold had been looted.

However, below the surface which had been designed for humans, there was the true core of the temple. As a lord of water, Ragradia's preferred location to manifest had been a massive underground lake. Since the last time Milgazia had been there, the entrance had collapsed.

"Memphy, please gather some capable elves and high ranked dragons who can transform. We will need to dig this out."

"I bet I could dig up this whole place with just my Zenaffa armor. There's really no need to bother the others," she said, demonstratively waving her white wings.

"Please don't," Milgazia said with a strained voice.

"Why not?" Memphis said. "It's not like this is a fight, I won't blow up anything!"

He didn't believe her for one bit.

"We should treat a chosen place with respect. A device that separates one from the astral plane may interfere with any future messages from Earthlord Rangort."

Memphis looked at the ground, dejected. "Alright then. But I wanna help guard it! The devils won't like it when we start getting help from the gods again!"

"Which is why we won't be rebuilding to upper part of the temple. They will surely try working against us once our work comes in the open. Come on, let's return to the valley."

With a twirl, Memphis was in the air. "Would you like to race me, uncle? No spells allowed!"

"Not today, Memphy."

She sighed. "Okay."

As they descended again, Milgazia looked back at the ruins a few times and couldn't help but remember how things had been before the defeat of the Aqualord. He had done his best to uphold the commands of Aqualord Ragradia, but with the sudden pointlessness of spirituality many of his tribe were aimless. They clung to guarding the Claire Bible because that was all they could do.

Memphis skipped ahead, blissfully unaware of the implications of the renewed attention of the gods.

Why Earthlord Rangort? He governed the deep south, farthest from here. It would make more sense for Firelord Vrabazard or Airlord Valwin to claim this domain; especially Vrabazard. If what he had heard from Lina Inverse was not an exageration, then the Firelord had lost his first holy order and should be in need of more people. Perhaps the second order was numerous enough?

"Hey, Uncle! Look!"

Memphis skipped to a halt so suddenly that Milgazia had to veer away, lest he crash into her.

She pointed at a speck crossing the horizon. Going by flight, speed and response to air current, it should be a dragon but it was too bulky. The distance was too great for them to sense whether it was a devil, so they decided to get closer.

The dot moved lower to the vally, descending in a spiral towards one of the lakes.

It was was indeed a dragon. Female, not fully matured yet, who somehow deemed it perfectly fit to play cargo animal. On her back she not only had four foxes, a reptilian and a human boy, but also an array of luggage, which they were untying right now. Most bizarrely, she had let someone tie a pink bow around her tail.

Wait, he'd heard of a dragon like that before ...

Her cargo group climbed off to have a drink. Rather extravagantly, might he add. When the lizardman jumped in with a splash, two of the foxes did the same, and then the dragoness herself jumped up, curled to a ball and made the biggest splash yet.

He and Memphis landed on the shore just as she raised her head out of the water.

"I am Milgazia, leader of the golden dragons of Dragon's Peak. State your reason for being here."

"Oh, hello, lord elder!" she said in human tongue, rather than the draconian roars and growls he was using. She seemed confused, perhaps embarrassed as she quickly climbed out of the water and shook herself out like a wet dog. Considering the mane she had, that perhaps wasn't too strange, but it certainly struck him as undignified. Milgazia had to remind himself this was a young dragon of a the eastern clan ... and his own companion wasn't that much more dignified either. Memphis was poking at the discarded luggage with a Zenaffa produced arm.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, lord Milgazia. My name is Filia Ul Copt. This is my family : Val Ul Copt, Gravos Maunttop, and Jillas, Elena, Palu and Molly of the Jillos Jilles family."

"You are Filia Ul Copt?" Memphis asked, instantly shifting her attention.

"Yes, I am," she said. "I believe we have friends in common."

"It _is_ you!" Memphis chirped. "We traveled with Lina Inverse and Gourry Gabriev too for a while, just like you! Did she tell you about us?"

"I heard about lord Milgazia a few years ago and I heard about you in more recent letters. You're quite good with the Zenaffa armor, miss Memphis. Correct?" she said with an uncharacteristic wide smile despite her dragon form. Milgazia had always thought the more humanoid inclination of his eastern kin had been odd, but this one took the meat.

"I absolutely am!" Memphis said proudly.

"Please tell us what your business here is," Milgazia said before she could demonstrate said control.

"We used to live in Ankrabast, but the humans got suspicious of us and we had to move," the foxwoman said. "Can we stay here for a bit, please?"

"Ah. Well, I see no problem with that," Milgazia said. "However, if you wish to keep your servants at hand you will have to stay with the elves, as us dragons have no accommodations for them."

"They are my family!" Filia snapped, which took Milgazia aback for a moment. The change in demeanor was certainly unexpected, he was not used to young dragons, or anyone, treating him in such a manner. And heavens, why was she so emotional?

Before he knew how to respond, she realized on her own she was out of bounds. "Forgive me, but they are my family. We share work and money as it suits best, and we live together. Please don't call them such that implies they below me. I would prefer staying with the elves if that means I stay with my family."

"Very well."

"Everyone, let's not keep our hosts waiting. We can swim later!" she said.

Swimming in the lake for fun. What an eccentric dragon. Hopefully they weren't going to give Memphis any ideas.

The group climbed on her back again and she was about to take to the sky when Memphis begged to get a ride too so she could meet everyone, which Filia Ul Copt complied with. Befuddled, Milgazia led the strange group towards the nearest elven village.

This was certainly an unusual coincidence.

Scratch that, not a coincidence. During their travels, Lina Inverse had told him a little of her past exploits, which included the Dark Star Dugradigdu adventure and the priestess named Filia Ul Copt. The human maiden was not a teller of long detailed stories, so his understanding was scarce.

During the Dark Star incident his clan been told to sit it out, it was all arranged for by the golden dragons who served Vrabazard. The world was safe in the end, but the Flarelord's clan had mysteriously disappeared. Lina Inverse had later told him_ how _they had vanished, after a lot of prodding.

It was hard to believe his own kind could have behaved in such a way and the associated story of the genocide of the ancient dragons was even harder to accept. When the barrier had dropped, he and Azonge had made effort to get in touch with the other sacred dragons and finding the Ancients missing, they had concluded that after the war was over the devils had eradicated them for the usual reasons. Azonge flat out refused to believe what some random little sorcerer human had to say about it and firmly subscribed to the theory that she'd just been fed lies by devils.

Personally, he couldn't rule out that possibility. Xelloss would benefit from being considered the lesser evil and who knew what untruths he could orchestrate? Well, he would likely be able to get a better answer from Filia Ul Copt.

The elf village lay on a slope with reasonable greenery and was partially underground. His friend and Memphis' father was one of the elders heading the place and from the looks of it, Memphis would be happy to get them residence.

They landed at the edge of the village, at which point he said, "I heard you are a high dragon and can transform into a humanoid form."

"Yes, but ..."

Milgazia transformed, and noticed she didn't.

"Those bushes look pretty dense, sister," one of the foxes said.

Ah, rookie transformers. Always an awkward situation. He'd once transformed while his clothes stayed stuck in subspace during a political convention, he knew the need for precautions.

She took the suggestion, and one golden glowing bush later, a blond woman in white cloak appeared again. Milgazia concluded the pink bow hadn't been a whim of some human child that she had indulged, for she wore a frilly pink dress below the clock.

"What's with those?" Memphis asked, pointing at the green spheres covering her ears.

She gave a little smile. "I'm not able to make my ears smaller, so I use these to cover them up. They're subspace compatible, so I can hear just fine and my ears aren't squished by them. Anyway, shall we go?"

Milgazia led the way, but Memphis lagged behind to talk with the group. Occasionally, Milgazia looked over his shoulder to watch them talk.

It was inescapable to notice how good Filia was at imitating elves and humans. Whether it was innate skill or practice he couldn't tell, but expressions shifted over her face with ease, her arms moved to gesture and she even shifted her pose to indicate tiredness.

Amongst dragons this wasn't necessary to be this physically expressive. They did not rely on human body language to make themselves understood, just to be less intimidating when interacting with smaller beings. Milgazia had never bothered learning.

Perhaps her unusual aptitude was because the servants of Vrabazard were more indulgent in the concept of detailed society? They had lived relatively close to the humans, after all. No ranges of mountains to separate them. He had even heard rumor they got drama classes.

On the other hand, he had _met_ them before the barrier was raised. If they had any skills in humanity they hadn't bothered with them, nor did their home betray any affinity to the culture. He could not imagine this having changed much in the last millennium.

More puzzling though was her indication she had been living in a human city, rather than with dragons.

Lina Inverse had mentioned something about her not being a priestess anymore, but to Milgazia that didn't mean anything. If she'd channeled Ceiphied's power after resigning, then she still should hold some status to call upon if she sought out the smaller communities on the continent.

So he asked her about it.

"There are others, true. The second holy order was migratory between the individuals and smaller clans," she admitted. "But look at my family. They wouldn't be accepted living there."

"How about your blood family? Would they not understand?"

Filia held the hand of the human boy a little tighter. "No, they would not."

As expected, Memphis was heavily involved in getting the group a place to stay. Loud nagging happened when Memphis mentioned being fired at by cannons as exercise for her armor. Sometimes Milgazia regretted the day they'd run into Naga the White Serpent, even if the woman cured Memphis's chronic shyness.

Filia Ul Copt was only a little less loud. She mingled with a bystander conversation about her beast people, correcting them on an assumption about hair loss and furniture. It looked like it would escalate for a moment, but soon she turned the conversation to a friendlier atmosphere and they were talking about frivolities and ... pottery? The female fox was pulled in and there was an impromptu soirée.

An empty house was offered to her, and she gladly accepted. It didn't seem to bother her much she wasn't invited to stay in any inhabited home, perhaps she was used to it. He followed her into the home, intent on speaking with her about the real reason of her presence, but was was hard to get a word in. The elves found it a profound curiosity, this dragon and her family, so they were taking up her time in between unpacking.

Milgazia concluded she was good with human expressions because she held an unusual curiosity and spent most of her time in shrink form. A mixture of curiosity and affection might prompt this, based on the little things that appeared from the many bags.

Cookies, bows, frilly dresses, board games, various brushes for fox fur care, cards, ointments suited for every species in her little group, colored pencils, balls of yarn. Before long, she had unwound one of those balls and was teaching elven children a game named cat's cradle.

Milgazia actually felt a little left out. He considered telling one of his jokes, but was distracted by a familiar roar. He took to the sky to go meet Azonge and his flock. His fellow leader was beelining for the village.

"Greeted, my friend. I heard you spotted a newly arrived golden dragon and led her to the elf village?" Azonge asked.

"Indeed I did."

Azonge growled deeply. "You already extended an invitation?"

"Yes. Is there a problem?"

"I met her in Gyria a few days ago. She hit me in the head with a mace."

"She did?" That didn't strike him as fitting at all.

"She was making needless drama about me pushing away one of her disrespectful beasts."

"I did not see her beast people cause any problems just now," Milgazia said. Not that he wanted to disregard Azonge, but it was known that he wasn't fond of beast people. Milgazia did not favor them either, but there were worse things.

"She's going to be problem," Azonge said. "There's something very fishy about a lone, loaded young dragon making it across these mountains without scratch, right at a time we're doing experiments!"

"Actually, less than two hours ago we got a sign from Earthlord Rangort. It may be less ominous than you think. I believe this dragon is the one that was involved in the Dark Star incident. She may serve us."

"Honestly? ... well, I still think she'll be a problem. But more important matters first. What did the honorable Earthlord say?"

Memphis probably had forgotten to round up workers, now there was such a novelty around. Milgazia brought Azonge up to date, and they decided it was best to dig up the temple first, then attend to the coptish presence.

Unearthing the temple was a tedious thing to do, and Milgazia had a startlingly blasphemous thought. Why couldn't Earthlord Rangort just do this remotely, if he could throw a mountain peak?

Perhaps he was simply too busy.

**· · · · · · ·**

Word spread of that strange, eccentric dragon and her following. As the elves that had seen her confrontation with Azonge had witnessed mingled with the village, opinion of her became less charitable, so Memphis told him. Memphis herself didn't see why it was such a big deal if Azonge got knocked over a bit and still wanted to play with cannons.

Milgazia didn't get a chance to visit her until next day, by which time the Ul Copt family had already firmly settled into the village and apparently couldn't be subtly encouraged to go elsewhere. The home they'd been appointed had new curtains (pink with cats) and a thick pillar of smoke from the chimney. At his knock, a fox let him in.

Memphis was already there, sitting at a table and busily trying to convince the elder fox why exactly he should build a cannon and shoot at her. Above the hearth was a pot with arcane brew, being tended to by Filia. He couldn't say it was a pleasing scent.

"Filia?"

She looked startled, quickly stood up and rubbed her hands cross her apron. "Hello, lord Elder."

"How have are you finding your accommodations?"

"Quite alright, thank you for letting us stay here."

The pot released a small puff of green mushroom smoke, which caused Memphis to wince. "Uncle, don't stay to eat, she cooks like she's expecting devils for dinner."

Filia gave a scathing laughter, the rest of her group gave a mixture of knowing chuckles, rins and some eye rolling.

"Devils are not invited for dinner. Even if they invite themselves sometimes. This," she said with a tap on the pot, "is the product of years of labor to find out something everyone in my house likes to eat. Even the cat."

"It smells horrible until you taste it, then it's great," the human boy said.

"You're not convincing me. There's meat in it. Anyway, Jillas, don't worry about the forging. We have forges, I'll just get you into the smith cave."

Milgazia didn't like where that was going, because that fox looked awfully eager to accept the offer. Looking around for a diffusion, he picked one of the absurd amount of vases from the nearest shelf.

"How nice. You collect vases."

Worried, she shot over, gently took the vase from his hand and place it back. "Actually, I make vases and collect antiques, I sell both."

"Must've been a pain to drag all that here," Memphis said.

"I'm not leaving behind my hard earned items when I can carry them just fine," Filia said as she returned to her cooking. "Besides, I won't be depending on my friends to attend to me, we will stand on our own commercial feet as soon as we get to Sailoon."

"Excuse me, Sailoon?" Milgazia asked. She must either be horrible at reading maps if she came from the south, or for some reason she had come from the west. He chose not to comment, because her temper was more worrisome. "I heard of your conduct in regards to my fellow leader. Perhaps Sailoon is not the best place for you to live. Its family is in open pursuit of their concept of justice, which surely will frown on such vigilante behavior."

"Have you ever _met_ the Sailoon royals? No, Sailoon will be wonderful. The only reason we didn't move there was the difficult in getting a cannon company going in a place where people prefer to hire magicians for defense." She seemed to think for a moment, then pulled up her dress and revealed a mace. She tossed it in the air lightly and then caught it again. "Plus, I sell these too. They require one to know the market."

"The priestess of tea finery deals in the art of destruction too, eh?" Memphis said while dipping her finger in the brew. She almost tasted it, but changed her mind. "It's weird. Especially the antique thing. What do people want old stuff? That just means it breaks more quickly."

"Because remembering the past is important," said the human boy. He looked up sharply with yellow eyes and ... wait, were those _split _eyes? He was too young to have mastered the transformation spell, so he couldn't be a dragon. Perhaps a chimera?

"Young lord Val is right," the orange fox said. "Monuments are educative."

Were they still talking about antiques?

"Miss Memphis, I'll have you know that the vases I deal with either are of the finest, most durable quality, or home made and even more sturdy than the classics. The art behind both vases and maces is the composition of the material and the structure with which it's put together. Preferably with some endurance spells cast on them. My wares do not just break! ... except when gods decide to use them for their symbols. That's why I'm here, there was a lot of breaking stone to harass me in this direction.

And there it was, the reason behind the coincidence of her arrival.

"Are you open for commission?" Milgazia asked.

"Huh?" For some reason this surprised her, she dropped her spoon.

"We too have received holy messages, starting last week. We are to create magic vessels to bind dark and sacred energy for the purpose of fusion magic. Unfortunately, we have been unable to produce vessels that can withstand even something as simple as an accidental squeeze by dragon claws, and the magic simply seeps out. It would appear you are our solution."

"Eh .. eheheh. Oh _no_." She sat down at the table, head in her hands. He might have though she was depressed, but she still smiled, albeit in a weird way. When she looked up, she was resigned. "We're going to have to stay here for a long time, don't we? Possibly to be part of whatever plot is going on. I'd hoped we'd be out of here soon."

"I would not call a god's intentions a plot, rather a plan. What makes you believe it will take long."

"I don't actually know how to make fusion magic vessels. I know how to do it in natura and I know how to make pottery, but that's all."

"In natura?"

"Never mind. Where are you getting dark energy?"

"We capture devils in Zenaffa armor. Their projections are extensions of their power, and thus can be transported by cutting them off the astral plane."

"Then I hope your security is thorough, because I'll have to get close to make this work. The way fusion magic works, it—"

"Mom, are you really going to help those dragons?" the boy asked. "Just because that god says so?"

"I'm not seeking to make enemies of anyone, neither gods nor devils, Val. However, most devils already are our enemies, and I don't want to add Rangort to the list. Lord Milgazia, I will accept your offer."

"Off course. I will show you the work space right now," Milgazia said. It was just a child complaining, he didn't expect her to truly argue with the boy.

"With all due respect, I have to cook dinner for my family. By the way, on the topic of payment, you can start by getting some better food into these kitchens. Especially better tea."

"But—"

"With all due respect, no buts." At that, the entirety of her family snickered for some reason.

Memphis tugged at his arm. "Uncle, let's go. I'm hungry too and they're cooking meat! Let's get something better, okay?"

Milgazia nodded, glad Memphis had forgotten about—

"Oh, and maybe you can pay that fox to play cannon ball with me. I bet he wants to, but he's told not to do stuff without payment."

Never mind.

"I'll think about it, Memphy."

**· · · · · · ·**

In this manner, the once solemn operation gained a colorful, vocal new member. A dragon who acted entirely too human.

Azonge did not like this but backed off when a geyser that they'd closed with much effort broke open, and the rain of rock arranged itself in a way that said he should not complain.

The forgers did not like this either, since the first thing Filia Ul Copt did was, when being shown the magic vessels that'd already made was criticizing their supposedly tacky design. Milgazia thought they were just fine, actually. She tapped one and it broke, which was followed by a rant on weight division and internal structure.

The devil keepers liked it even less after she told them to kill the devils inside, since putting living pieces inside the vessels meant the power was not neutralized and fusion magic would never work if the minds behind it were not in concord. She even had the insanity to complain about the way they were kept poorly. As if they had any rights.

It was unanimously agreed not to let her wander around anymore. She was given the first cleared out room in the underground ruins, so she could work in silence, alone. Clay and metal was handed to her, which she cited as inferior at once.

By the end of a tiresome few days, Milgazia dropped down on a ridge alongside Azonge. It was drizzling, but pleasantly warm anyway.

"Still fond of this whole place, Milgazia? Even now it's gone crazy?"

"It is the will of the gods," he said tensely.

Azonge rumbled with amusement. "At least the latest addition hasn't maced anyone else. I suppose she's just territorial over those foxes. Unnatural, I tell you, a dragon keeping servants. Only gods have such rights."

"I beg to disagree, gods don't care for rights," someone spoke entirely too close. The stinging aura of a devil drove through their being.

At once, Azonge and Milgazia had whipped their long necks around and were looking at the small humanoid figure that sat on the rocks behind them.

"What are you doing here?" Milgazia said stiffly, suppressing that old instinct that told him to flee right now. Both he and Azonge knew better than to move. Fleeing dragons and loose emotions only enticed devils to chase, and this was one they could not trap no matter what they tried. Xelloss was a master of astral plane shifts, he'd be gone before they ever forced a Zenaffa armor on him.

"I'm just curious at what your latest project is? You do have a project, we know that much. Would you show me around, or will I do it myself?"

They had no choice.

Azonge took the lead, quietly telling Milgazia to spare his power and get an evacuation going while he stretched the tour.

Xelloss didn't allow any stretching the tour, however, and made it crystal clear he was to be shown to the work hall at once.

The place was large and circular, with a ring of sacred water so wide a hundred golden dragons could bathe in it. At the center was a forge of holy power behind a shield, as well as their latest vessels, which were already showing cracks from mishandling and overcharged power. Azonge tried to verbally dance around the questions Xelloss asked, all the while ushering out the workers.

Xelloss was not easily distracted, he had all his attention on finding out what exactly the dragons wanted to do these these vessels. That was probably the only reason this place hadn't been blown up yet.

Azonge had no idea, nobody did.

Milgazia stood outside the hall and sent the elves and humanized dragons on their way with instructions of where to go, and whom to obey.

Somewhere in the middle of this, Filia Ul Copt casually wandered into the passageway. In scrumpled work clothing, cloth wrapped around her hair, with a case of tea bags under her arm. Unworthy of a dragon, ridiculous given the situation.

He grabbed her by the shoulder and shook softly. She yawned and rubbed her eyes.

"Oh, hello, lord Milgazia. You did put a kitchen here, but where was that again? I need to make myself some tea ... even if it's _this_."

"Filia Ul Copt, you must leave," Milgazia said with what he hoped was an urgent voice.

"Huh? Wadja mean?" she muttered, drooling a bit.

"You must take your group and go to one of the caves to hide, or leave the valley."

"Leave the valley? Azonge told me there's not much chance I get as lucky in avoiding devils out there as I did on my way here. Earthlord Rangort likely help me there."

"The devil that is here right now is far more dangerous. Please, you have to leave as quickly as possible. A battle may errupt at any moment and it is one we cannot win. All we can do is hope that we destroy the vessels before he gets his hands on them."

"The vessels don't work anyway," she said, rubbing her head. "Wait ... there's a devil here? I'm not dreaming that?"

She tapped the teabox against her head twice. As she properly woke, her eyes grew wide. Frantically she barged past Milgazia, threw open the door to the work hall and the Dragon Slayer turned around to open one eye at her. All others looked too.

The teabox dropped. Milgazia thought she'd run, but instead she fazed out of view in a golden glow and manifested right between Xelloss and the vessels.

"What are you doing here, trash?"

Eyebrow twitch.

"How nice to see you again, miss Filia."

"I'm sure. Can't I go anywhere without cockroaches on my tail?"

Another eyebrow twitch.

Milgazia grew wings to quickly cross the distance, taking her by the shoulders and trying to turn her away. "Filia, what are you doing?"

He couldn't move her as easily as he wanted to, she was far heavier than she ought to be in this form. She staggered back only two steps and didn't grow any less aggressive.

"I assure you, my presence here has nothing to do with you. As if you'd be that important," Xelloss said.

"Oh really? My ever increasing bill of property damage tells me otherwise!"

"I'll admit you provide good meals. However, I've come to investigate what these dragons have been doing," he said sharply, pointing past her at the vessels. "Magic vessels might just be of use, so I thought I'd borrow them."

"What do _you_ even need them for?" A smirk appeared on Filia's face. "Wait, I see. You lost the ability to absorb holy magic."

Xelloss narrowed that one open eye. Milgazia was no expert at reading expressions, but he knew that once since dragons did it too. There were fearful gasps all around the room, and Milgazia felt his feet sink and his mind run to possible escape routes ...

"I'll have you know that as an astral being, I'm not prone to mortal things like _forgetting _skills. The purposes for these vessels is not merely for my own benefit. However ..."

... destroy the vessels first to keep them out of devil hands ...

"Let me guess!" Filia said as she raised a finger to her lips. "The reason I'm about to hear will be a cliché catchphrase."

Xelloss gritted his teeth. "Aren't we clever today?"

... create a diversion so the weaker dragons could get away ...

"No, we are not at all. It's night and I fell asleep at the wrong place and _you are here_! That in itself impairs my ability to function as I should. Forgive me if I'm not up to your wittiness standards."

... wake up Memphis and convince her not to fight but flee ...

"I can't comment on that, it's rather hard for me to ascertain what you're like in my absence. From what I hear from your family, there's only less yelling because you can make them shut up."

... what?

"You leave them out of this, cockroach! And don't think I can't tell you're changing the topic again! Just do what you came to do and get lost already!"

... nobody was dead yet. Perhaps this was a dream.

"Now now, it's impolite to usher guests out so quickly. Besides, these vessels come in a rather tacky in design. I couldn't possibly present these to Lord Beastmaster without insulting her."

Filia found her turn to twitch. "You just _had _to say something I'd have to agree with, didn't you?"

Hallucinatory spell?

Xelloss suddenly looked content and said, "Well, it's settled then. I'll be sticking around to speed along the work. We've got our work cut out, these dragons have been doing a miserable job."

...

"What, _our work_?"

...

"Off course our work, miss Filia. I believe you'll have marginally better understanding than the dragons around here. Not that that's a hard earned feat." Xelloss tilted his head at Milgazia, causing Filia to finally acknowledge him too.

Rational thought returned at the poke at Milgazia's pride and he noticed his face had been _gaping_.

Apparently, Xelloss was putting up with this behavior because he needed Filia for something. That explained a lot ... right?

"Hmmph, it's just that lord Milgazia and the others haven't had any experience with pottery beforehand. They make quite effective Zenaffa armor."

"Off course they have no experience, they're rather dissenting towards mundane culture. Really, miss Filia, you should know better than to stick up for dragon elders whom you don't really know."

For a moment, Filia's expression turned grave.

... and she just stuck her tongue out at him.

"Really, Xelloss? That's your best shot at provoking me?" She phased back to where she'd dropped her teabox. "I'm now going to have the nice cup of tea I came for, and am _not_ getting irritated."

"Excellent, I could use a cup. Offerings have been dull today."

"You are not invited!" she snapped, and Xelloss looked terribly satisfied at this.

"My my, and I was just about to compliment you on your tea making skills."

"As if!" she called over her shoulder. "You're always complaining about ... ugh!"

He'd shifted to the astral plane.

From Milgazia's point, he could see Xelloss shift into view and softly nudge the door just as Filia turned her face forward to walk out. She smacked right into it. Her tail shot out below her nightgown, a low growl escaped her as she staggered back and the container clattered on the ground again.

Xelloss just smiled amiably and said, "Oops, I thought I'd hold the door but—"

She shot laserbreath right at his face. He teleported just barely in time to avoid it.

Azonge was right, she was completely crazy. Filia Ul Copt walked the deserts of insanity, those souls lost to the world. Any moment she would be reduced to a bloody smear on the floor. What madness had possessed her to act so ferocious in face of the Dragon Slayer?

Xelloss shifted to her other side, one finger raised and a thoughtful expression on his face as he looked at the hole Filia had left.

"Hmm, I do agree redecorations are in place, but don't you think this is a little drastic, miss Filia? After all, you always tell me strangers have no business redecorating other people's houses and I highly doubt you are capable enough to install a refrigerator in that hole anyway."

"No, but I have the skills for making a decent garbage deposit. I don't think the bins of this place are up for the latest demand," Filia said, not even looking at the Dragon Slayer anymore. She was using her hands to bend the newly formed dent on her teabox as if she had absolutely no reason to fear imminent painful death.

The potential dispenser of painful deaths was in fact looking thoroughly unhappy, twitchy even ... maybe that was a good sign. The Dragon Slayer always smiled when he killed.

Which he still wasn't doing right now.

Filia restored her teabox and pulled the door back open with so much forc that Milgazia could hear the hinges creak. When she pulled it close behind her, a hinge shot loose. Xelloss stood there for a second, still not smiling, then shifted to the astral plane.

The suffocating silence amongst him and the other dragons didn't have much room for relief though.

"Does anyone have a rational explanation for this?"

**· · · · · · ·**


	5. Filia's Materials

**· · · · · · ·**

Stupid, stupid, _stupid_! She should have ignored him.

Filia had a track record of four consecutive years of never once losing her self control (at least not fully) and hadn't tried attacking him for seven years straight. And now this. He'd be bringing this up for years to come. "Once a dragon, always a dragon."

That was probably what had gotten her off balance. Taunting Xelloss had become a second nature, so much she just did it without thought.

And now he was here, where things were likely to go wrong much more profoundly. Things just did when Xelloss was around. She dared pray to Rangort that Val keep control, that he wouldn't transform. She hadn't prayed in years and this were not ideal circumstances, in a ruined kitchen with Xelloss floating around. He better not be blocking her spiritual channels.

She almost slipped on a patch of wet moss, which elicited a mocking laughter. "You seem to have difficulty navigating today. Perhaps you should see a doctor."

Filia counted eleven dancing kittens with teacups and realized she needed a double serving before she was calm enough to reply.

"Why would I waste a doctor's valuable time when the cause is my _natural_ devil sense responding to _your_ presence? I'm glad though that you admit you're a plague. Alas, I shall have to accept a cure is not within my grasp," she declared, dramatically throwing a hand to her forehead. There was a grating sound behind her, she couldn't help but steal a glance.

Xelloss was caught in the twitches.

"Maybe you should question why you're so vulnerable to this disease, miss Filia. The other dragons do just fine."

She said nothing this time. The reason he already knew, after all. Her son was in danger.

The kitchen was little more than a large cave, used mainly by the elves that prepared the monthly nutritional blocks for the dragons that had come to work here. Those were bland tasting cubes thrown into cauldrons with boiling water, Filia had fed on it for a while before discovering the wonderful diversity of human cuisine.

Filia filled the smallest cauldron with water and huddled close to the fire, eager to gain some warmth in the nocturnal, subterranean cold. Sounds indicated Xelloss was making a mess, but Filia forced herself not to get worked up. Instead, she channeled her irritation onto the lack of proper stove, sorely wishing for access to those little holy fire spells lost to her once she left Vrabazard's service.

The water was nearly done boiling when Xelloss had gotten too bored waiting for a reply. A swarm of cup sized black cones suddenly twirled on the cauldron's edge and around Filia.

"Speaking of the thing that we shall not discuss, you have a strange idea of keeping that secret safe, you're doing a poor job coming here," he said, voice dim and from all directions. She kept staring at the water.

"I _was_ heading to Sailoon, but I got a divine message that I was to come here," she said through gritted teeth.

"I thought the Flarelord didn't give you calls anymore?"

"This really is none of your business, you know."

"Considering the massive coincidence of my work here and your arrival, I say someone is trying to make me your business."

Coincidence, sure. The messages had started right after Xelloss had left.

"I'd love to know what is going on just as much. Here I come and all of the sudden, dragons are utilizing tools? And then you show up and also have an interest in tools? This is absurd!"

"It quite is, is it not?" he chirped. "But you don't know whether they intend to use them, or have elves use them."

The water was boiling. She dipped the kettle in and let it fell, after which she placed in the tea. It was not an acceptable way of brewing, but this kitchen was so poor it didn't even have a spoon for her to use.

"That's not your usual tea," Xelloss said, turned back to human projection.

"I lost my supply on the way here. The elves gave this to me."

She would have added a rant about how she didn't like it at all, but she'd already passed her daily quota of things she agreed on with Xelloss. This quota was zero, by the way.

Once it was done, she shoved a cup towards him.

His expression soured the moment he took a sip. "This really is not acceptable."

He tossed the cup over his shoulder. Her self made cup which she had painstakingly hand painted. That one. It scattered on the floor with a sound that was more dramatic than it had any business being. Then again, Filia had seen too much break lately.

"Aaaah!" She lurched for it, which turned into a dive for the pieces halfway through. It wasn't just that the cup was broken — plenty of things broke when one shared a home with Val and Jillas — but that he had broken it. Not the first time either, off course, but it still got to her. What business did he have ...

Straightening up, she held out the broken shards. "Fix it!"

"Why?"

She pulled open the nearby untouched cabinet with her tail and showed him the supplies. The cups were simple clay half spheres that smelled of earth.

"Or we're drinking from these from now on."

She could see him weigh the benefits of one act against another : irritate her by leaving the cup broken and miss her degradation of serving him tea, or do something and get her irritation over serving him tea ... it could go either way.

After a moment, and without a word, he tapped his staff on the ground and the cup reassembled itself.

"Did he just fix something?"

Filia's head swayed to the entrance of the kitchen cave.

There stood Milgazia with a mortified expression, wide eyed Memphis close behind him.

Oh, right.

Oh, _Lord Flare Dragon Ceiphied._

She should have acted like she was a terrified young priestess at the sight of the Dragon Slayer, cowering, weeping or struggling to retain a stoic demeanor. Short of actually revealing Val was an Ancient Dragon, nothing would draw as much attention as treating the devil that nearly brought the local dragon tribes to extinction as just a obnoxious neighbor.

Now she had a whole dragon clan that was terribly curious about just why she got on such a familiar base with Xelloss? Was there any way she could tell that story without mentioning Val?

"Ah, mister Milgazia, miss Memphis, would you also like some tea?" Xelloss said. "I'm assuming this blend must be your preferred flavor. You can have it all."

Milgazia's expression became a little more of the unreadable face she was used to seeing on transformed dragons.

"What's going on here, Filia Ul Copt?" he asked.

Was she just imagining that condescending tone, an echo of her order's rich array of distaste, or was he really judging her as a disgraced one? With Milgazia it was as unusually hard to tell, this already in comparison to other transformed dragons.

"A failing tea party," Xelloss said, holding up one finger. "This tea is absolutely inexcusible. Miss Filia, we ought to go shopping. I believe there's a nice little town not too far from here."

"We're not going shopping! I need to be sparing with my money,"Filia snapped before she caught herself.

"What about your blooming business?"

"Investments and banks. I only withdrew as much as I needed and knowing your tea preferences, I am not paying!"

_Also, those banks could give away my location if I withdraw from any unusual location._ Filia was certain by now that the dragons down south were not actively affiliated with these dragons. She would like it to stay that way.

Granted, her need to counter Xelloss aside, this tea really wasn't okay at all. She could spare a little money to buy something better and get some candy and other goodies for the family. They all needed some cheering up.

"He has tea preferences. And you know them," Milgazia stated.

"Naturally. We cooperated during the Dark Star campaign, during which I discovered she sets excellent tea. This really is a rare art, you see. Off course, the right ingredients and location are also a must."

"Let me rephrase my question. What is the meaning behind both of you being here?"

"Obviously, we're going to be making magic vessels," Xelloss said. "I was sent to retrieve them, but as it stands, there is nothing to retrieve, now is there?"

Ah, so he was being liberal with interpreting his orders again. Didn't Zelas know how he was? Or were her vague orders intentional? Then there was the entirely plausible option there were additional orders Xelloss didn't mention.

"You intend to stay here? For how long?" Milgazia said through clenched jaw.

"That will depend on our progress."

"And who said I was going to cooperate? Maybe you're not a part of Earthlord Rangort's plan at all," she snapped. "I'm under no obligation to help you until I know that!"

"Oh really?"

Dumb question. There were so many ways he could sour her life, like telling people about Val, sabotaging her any of the cannon factories, buying the banks, ...

"Y-you're not afraid he's going to kill you if you keep being this disrespectful?" Memphis squeaked. Gone was the confident young elven lady, replaced by a shy, stuttering damsel. The picture perfect of how Filia had been expected to act.

Their expectations were probably so much worse than reality, or perhaps it was reality to them. She had no idea how Xelloss acted around people who didn't entertain him.

Seven years ago, by all she had known her behavior towards Xelloss had been suicidal. She had not learned yet how tolerant he was. However, at that time she had believed him to merely be a good warrior, not a demideity. Those of the Kataart Mountains knew better.

"Lord Milgazia, please be at ease. Xelloss isn't going to kill anyone, he doesn't have to. Just go with whatever he wants and prepare for irritation."

"I see. Xelloss, are the magic vessels all you want?"

"Indeed. And it appears to likewise be the will of Earthlord Rangort."

"So, something happened during the Dark Star incident that made you two figure out how to make them?" Memphis asked.

"Ah, indeed. Such an interesting story that is," Xelloss started.

Filia was surprised his answer didn't include the word secret, but it became apparent quickly that he was angling to find out just how much Milgazia knew already.

Xelloss did an excellent job of telling the absolute truth in a way that completely avoided any Dark Star Dugradigdu related things to her son, or just how integrated he was in the Ul Copt household. Knowing Lina, and perhaps Milgazia too, he got the whole blueprint out.

Milgazia knew what all dragons knew by now of Lina and her battles against the Hellmaster and the Dark Star. Milgazia had gotten confirmation for this during his time traveling with her.

Lina _had_ censored certain things. Milgazia knew nothing about Volphied's involvement, Lina probably had considered it too much of a stretch on his belief to tell about world destroying gods. Milgazia did know Xelloss had been there and had aided in name of the devils of this world not wanting another world to do the destruction. He also knew of the massacre of the ancient dragons, but seemed to have a hard time accepting it as true on Lina's word alone. The few others he had told this flat out didn't believe the Ancient Dragons had _not_ been hatching malicious things, even if they believed in a beat that the massacre had happened.

All the time, Memphis stood at Milgazia's side slowly rebuilding the tower of her confidence. Xelloss's breezy tone and congenial attitude might be to blame, or perhaps she was good at pulling herself together. Elves did not have a sense for devils as dragons did, but they did have spells that allowed them to see onto the astral plane. If she was seeing him right now for what he really was, she was doing the right kind of adapting, if not, Filia hoped she wouldn't let her guard down.

Or perhaps it was the strange elvish tea, which she had finished almost entirely by the end of the Dark Star history.

Memphis was the one to pipe up with a story of her own, namely that which explain why they were doing this project to begin with.

The official story was that now the barrier was down, devils were spreading out across the world and they had to prepare for the plot that the remaining three lords were doubtlessly hatching.

The unofficial story was that Lina Inverse was putting a dent in the world's devil hierarchy and the dragons and devils thought this meant something.

They weren't sure what, but it made them all nervous. Especially after it became clear that casualties on the side of good _weren't _averted and there was a whole priest clan of one of the gods _missing_. The dragons wanted to unite and form a singular nation.

With a few marked questions from Xelloss, it became clear they had no idea about Lina's use of the Giga Slave or the exact details of her encounter with Fibrizo. What would these dragons do if they knew? Her own clan ... she would be marked for execution after she had served her purpose.

Ragradia's dragons were different, more likely to go out of their way and help those who needed it. They held the legacy of their god in high regard, a god who had been unusually sympathetic to the plight of the short lived mortals.

Wistful thinking, but maybe she could eventually even tell them about Val? Telling them about the Giga Slave might give a good hint of their response, after all, Lina lived with that ability without using it wantonly, while Val was a different person than Valgaav. If Val could grow up alongside dragons, it would solve so much problems.

Wanton optimism peeked into Filia's mind again, despite her more rational thoughts trying to usher it out.

Xelloss had all the explanations he wanted, and so told Milgazia what was to be done. Xelloss and Filia would work on speeding along the creation of magic vessels, he specifics would be detailed later. Without a word of protest, the elder agreed.

It disturbed Filia to be in a situation where a devil threatening a dragon into compliance, however subtly, was something that gave her a sense of safety. It was true, though. Val didn't need to be noticed. Xelloss was his usual annoying self and perhaps there was a similar plot at work as the one the gods had created against Dark Star Dugradigdu. Who the enemy was would remain to be seen.

**· · · · · · ·**

Filia returned to the village for a poor night's rest and was woken early by Memphis, who told her that Milgazia had sort of hushed up the strange events inside the ruins. Everyone off course knew Xelloss was here, but the fine details were missing. Fine details like the ex priestess of Vrabazard being 'friends' with him.

"He's not my friend," Filia grumbled as she came down the stairs.

"On the scale of devil interaction, you should fall somewhere at being injured for your insolence even if you're necessary. You're fine."

"Tss, you should see how miss Lina treats him. Xelloss is an occasional colleague," Filia said. "Miss Elena, are the children awake yet?"

"Shall I wake them?" Xelloss said.

Filia groaned. Trespassing as usual, he might have been around already on the astral plane.

"No. You'd j—"

He was gone already. There was a yelp and a sharp crack from the cellar where Val slept, causing Filia's breath to freeze. Val had mostly likely grown an oversized limb into or against something, she dearly hoped that wasn't a supporting column.

The house creaked dangerously as if in response to her thoughts.

"Is the house going to survive Xelloss?" Memphis asked.

"Eh, maybe not," Filia said. _Please don't go downstairs or offer to fix the damage._

Jillas, Palu and Gravos came thundering down the stairs, worry on their faces.

"Don't worry, Xelloss just started Val," Filia quickly said. "In his usual way."

"Hey, Jillas! Uncle gave us permission! You're allowed to use the smith shop!"

"Really?" Jillas bounded down the stairs and starting ranting about his ideas, and Memphis actually managed to keep up.

_That_ was a swing around on behalf of Milgazia. When Xelloss and Val appeared from the cellar, she side eyed the priest while nodding at the plotting elf and vulpen. He gave an apologetic shrug and mouthed that might have been, "_It'll make nice explosions_".

"Val, did you sleep well?"

"Yeah, but then Evil Wizard Cone Person Thingy stepped on my wi-leg." Another breath held, but it was apparent quickly that Memphis was too busy with Jillas to notice slips of tongue. Filia remembered to quietly thank the gods the elf didn't run around with the astral plane sight spell active, it would have given Val away in an instant.

"Val! We don't call him nice things today. He's been rude tonight," she said as she led the group into the kitchen, where Elena was already preparing breakfast.

Val climbed on the table, but she pulled him off and set him on a chair. "He's gonna stick around some more?"

Filia nodded. "We're under contract together."

"Like with Dark Star?" Palu asked. Another nod from Filia.

"Hey, kid, what do you mean today? Is that a habit of yours? A not sleep drunk one?" Memphis asked as she claimed herself a seat at the table.

"Evil Cone Thingy comes by all the time," Val said with a yawn. "I always say hello, but we sometimes like him less so how I say it depends."

"That was hardly a hello," Xelloss said.

"You stepped on my ... leg."

"Knock it off you two. That is the best hello you're going to get, Xelloss. Miss Memphis, I take it you'd like to eat with us?"

"She's here to spy on you," Xelloss said with an overcoat of chipper. He opened an eye, and Memphis's demeanor cracked with a flinch.

"Eh eh, yes. Maybe. Sort of," Memphis said stiffly. "I didn't mean to offend, I just ... ehm ... "

"Don't worry, Memphy," Palu said. "I hear you've wrecked towns, so he'll probably like you."

"I don't wreck them carelessly!"

Filia couldn't suppress a smug little smile. She was going to like Memphis, as she usually ended up doing for all of Lina's friends.

Memphis stayed for breakfast, and unfortunately so did Xelloss. Woe was had.

At least this woe was adequately predicted, as Memphis explained Filia's workspace was be expanded to accommodate Xelloss and receive priority ground. They would be moved to the grand hall and a sleeping chamber would be arranged. It was a subtle hint they wanted her to work full time and get out as quickly as possible.

"Great, then you can move your pack out of this cramped house," Xelloss said. "Did you know there's a cracked founding column?"

There was a collectively groan from the family.

"Do we have to?"

Xelloss opened one eye and glanced at Memphis while leaning his staff in Val's direction.

He had a point. Filia had been keeping Val either inside or far away from the village, just to be safe. There were still elves in the ruins, but they were less likely to run into Val. Plus, if Val was close to Xelloss, he could block out view with his astral body.

"There's no playmates up there," Val said, flying by the point at mach 2. "It's only fun for Evil Cone Thingy cause he gets to feed cause I wouldn't like it."

"Well, I'll decide after I see my new workspace," Filia said. "Perhaps it'll be a lot of fun up there exploring the ruins and there's a lot more magic there."

"Maybe," Val muttered.

She'd explain him later about the potential safety issue, when Memphis was gone.

"Was there anything you wanted, miss Memphis?" Filia asked. "Otherwise I'd like to get on our way."

"Oh! Yes. Miss Filia, uncle Milgazia would like you to consult on the material to create the magic vessels from, so you'll have to pass by the import area. You have freedom to come along, right?"

What an odd question, did she think Xelloss had her on a leash or something?

"Sure. Xelloss, you watch over the children with miss Elena. Gravos, it would be appreciated if you could start packing, I'll teleport everything to the ruins once I'm back."

"Mom!"

"Right, I'll have a look around first, but I'm sure I'll convince you it's better there," she said with a wink. "Annoy Xelloss for me while I'm gone, okay?"

"Kay."

Xelloss raised a finger. "I'm here to obtain magic vessels, I never said anything about babysitting."

She gave him a hard, long stare while forcing back a raging rant at how he could afford to do this after all the trouble he usually put her though. He knew why it would be useful if he stayed close to Val when they were going to be moving out, he was just angling for a debate.

With a hard shove, she pushed her chair against the table.

"Come on, miss Memphis, show the way."

"I'd wish you a good day, miss Filia, but it would be unfair to give you false hope."

"Oh, shut up." She was not going to let him sour her mood.

**· · · · · · ·**

Filia and Memphis went to the import area by wing, landing on the south side of a tall mountain where a plateau had been carved out. Caves were used as storage.

Filia had been doom thinking when she had assumed she'd gotten the bad clay to work with. _All _clay they imported was disastrous. Clearly these dragons had no idea what they were doing.

As Filia in dragon form prodded the drying clumps, she asked where it came from.

"We get it from the lakes nearby," Milgazia informed her.

"Riverland clay is better than the gravelly earth from these mountains," Filia said. "I'd like to get some from a flat land beyond the Kataart mountains, but I'll need help digging it up and transporting it. Since we don't know how many vessels we'll have to make before we figure it out, it should be a lot."

"Do try to make them breakable."

"Excuse me?"

"Do understand that now that Xelloss is involved, it may become prudent that we can destroy the vessels in time of need."

"Such as?"

"They may intend to use the neutralizing effect of fusion magic to break free the devil king of the north."

"Why would they only do so after all that time?"

"The seal is too strong for any of them to break due to its anchor in the magic of the land itself."

"I see."

She didn't say she would in fact make them too breakable. Not only would Xelloss notice if she underperformed, she didn't really want to. For all her misgivings on the gods, when they did plan it was for the best of the world.

The journey to Dills required an escort due to the heavy devil population, so much that Filia could not attribute her safe arrival to anything less than divine intervention, or perhaps Xelloss. Not a couple of hours passed or there would be an attack by air.

It didn't help that Milgazia's presence had an uncanny tendency to make the passing of time seem slower. He said a lot of things Filia felt were meant as jokes, but they were ... flat, somehow. Testing. Trialling. Memphis as one pointed pleaded her to just play along and pretend to be amused.

Testing and trialling proved to be a theme for the day.

There was an allegiance with Dills, so they easily got permission to dredge the riverlands. Less easily was the actual dredging.

The dragons needed a lot of instructions to properly get the clay out, and Filia herself was improvising transport techniques and dirt digging. She wasn't adequate for it and so they all returned in a most muddy fashion. Their only consolation was a better clay.

Good grief, that felt like a consolation prize?

It did, Filia realized. She was amongst dragons again, her own kind, but it was not as before. She felt she ought to enjoy their presence, but there was little to relate about now. A distance existed beyond the numbness that Milgazia's presence seemed to affect in everyone after a few hours. This distance became all the more obvious the longer the silence went on. When the group entered the ruined temple, there was no more escaping the weary glances, no more blaming them on devil swarms and muck. They were for her.

_Did she team up with the detestable Xelloss? _All those thoughts came in the voice of the grand elder of her clan. Once, she would have been the same, judging an outsider as herself like that.

Well, perhaps she would have been worse. Nobody here was declaring her betrayal despite having far more concrete evidence of such than her Elder had been presented with.

It didn't make it a pleasant experience, though. Filia's grudgingly admitted she didn't need Xelloss to sour her mood today.

The deeper they went, the strange the rock became. No longer simple gray, there were veins of sapphire blue cross through the walls. Filia felt the holy power increase within them.

Ragradia's hall of worship was enough to house a hundred golden dragons wings wide. Blue light poured into dusty air from only recently carved windows, reflecting weakly on the muddied basins and rivers that ran throughout the hall. No sunlight, but that of holy power.

A statue as tall as that of Vrabazard stood at the end of the hall, entirely of the intense blue stone. It was no beacon of power, but nevertheless impressed Filia. The face of a god she had never seen and would never see, knowing so brought her a sorrow.

That's when she heard the sounds. Gargling, laughing, whispered words of hate came from behind the low dust. Though drowned by godly power, Filia became aware of the dim sting of devil aura.

There, in the alcoves of this hall of worship were the prisons of the captured devils. Those few that had not yet disintegrated themselves were kept here to be drained, so her guide explained without a hint of concern. All of them were lesser devils, so low they had to posses matter to manifest. Clinging to this matter meant they still existed even here.

Some had eyes, staring at her with hate. It wasn't easy for her to ignore them, not when the devils she knew were so alive to her, both Xelloss and Valgaav once upon a time.

Pity came uninvited, and so was shame for feeling it. Both feelings she tightly wrapped up and until the fall of night she was the perfect stoic dragon. She spoke her gratitude for the arrangements, as she had been taught at the fire temple, and more covertly thanked Milgazia for not letting rumors go out of bounds. How she'd have been looked at if 'tea parties with Xelloss' had been on her resume wasn't something she wanted to know.

He said he wasn't sure how long it would be before she'd find out, if she planned to make a habit of tea with and snapping at Xelloss. Right. Though he was much younger than her Elder, he reminded her of him in that moment.

It wasn't a good day and it wouldn't be a good night either.

**· · · · · · ·**

_She ran through the green halls, chasing the center. The temple was no different in concept than other dragon temples, she knew where to go._

_In alcoves the skulls of ancients were stacked, all pieces with crude metal, their last purpose in existence to be a morbid decoration. _

_All skulls were Val._

_Every so now and then the Elder would come here, she knew, imagined, realized through the power of dreams._

_A test conducted with newfound magic, perhaps he could pry out the bow of light after all. Desire, hunger, power, righteousness. He liked to see the skulls there, a memorial to a victory he took no joy in. Joy was not of his world._

_Duty warranted diligence._

_Pride warranted trophies._

_Empty sockets around a green orb laid out in the middle of the hall, because sometimes he liked to call onto the spirits of the Ancients to persuade them to unleash the spell. _

_Her Elder before her._

_Xelloss, the devil from the stories, he was behind her._

_She didn't matter and her Elder didn't care if she died, said it with more words than he'd needed to. The skulls around him turned dark, eyes alight with old power. Her Elder was the least haunting._

_He had no remorse. _

_He did have a flair of using the dead as decoration._

_And the dead, every time he summoned them, they would see their own skulls around them._

_Holy dragons should not be able to be sadistic._

_When she died, he burned the flesh off her skull and set her as a new socket for the summoner's orb._

_She was the heretic._

**· · · · · · ·**

Her fancy clock was close to midnight, she wasn't likely to be caught. The medium in charge of the crystal ball network was vast asleep, as she would have been if she hadn't woken up in sweat.

Really, this wasn't such a big deal even if she did get caught. She was just borrowing it, she'd bring it back. There'd be some difficulty saying why wanted to borrow a crystal ball in the middle of the night.

Maybe she'd just blame that on not wanting Xelloss to know she spoke to Sailoon, and he was gone for the night (she strangled her curiosity, tied it to a rock and threw it in a frozen lake). It _was_ true she would rather have this conversation _without _Xelloss around, the person she spoke to was simply someone not from Sailoon. Luna had indicated she didn't want anything to do with the dragons, and Filia figured they might exploit it if they knew about the contact.

Quietly, she slipped into the medium room, then out again. Once she was at a spot the glow and energy of her teleportation wasn't likely to draw attention, she returned to her new room. It was still messy due to the recent move (again) but manageable enough once she found a vase with the right top to hold the ball.

She needed a minute or five to steel herself.

Luna Inverse was ... tough when she didn't like something you did. She didn't yell, she didn't rage or rant, but there was something about her that made one feel like they were stripped naked in front of a crowd.

Truth be said she had avoided contacting Luna about the change of plans exactly because she knew she'd be put on the block for it.

To her surprise, Luna was awake enough to answer quickly. There wasn't even a grudging remark about her time.

"Filia, anything up?"

"Well, you see ... I got a signal from Earthlord Rangort to go the the Kataart Mountains, got commissioned to help create magic vessels, Xelloss arrived after a few days, and now we're going to work together."

"Aha ... run that by me again. More details."

This was going to hurt, but she obliged anyway. She wouldn't have called Luna if she wasn't prepared for it.

"Okay. Got it. Val and his loving marriage with secrecy is at jeopardy due to the sudden return of an old non-flame responsible for the death of his parents, while the mother is haunted by that tragic crime she didn't actually do and memories of her mentor figure betraying her. Meanwhile she's conflicted over the presence of this tall and dark but sadly not brooding man who keeps popping up. Goody, this makes my subscription to the soap club redundant. I'll file to be unsubscribed."

In Lunarian, that translated to sympathy. Probably.

"Miss Luna, I know you believe I should just get up and leave, but perhaps if I stay and cooperate, it will serve Earthlord Rangort to protect Val. Even if those dragons that attacked him were not directly sent by a god, they were hostile. Nothing better than a god on my side can protect Val."

"Tss, tss. Gods. Dash your hopes before they do, at least you'll get to keep the pieces. Not saying you should scram, though. Clown's there on orders of his boss, so the defective devils are at play. Which faction you think is more likely to turn your son into a macabre artwork?"

Don't trust the gods that won't let you know them, better the devil that does. Filia hadn't forgotten.

"Now let's go over the decision to go to the Kataart Mountains in the first place. That was such a wise move, Filia," Luna said.

"Miss Luna, I'm not being controlled by the gods. It's just ... you don't know what it feels like for a dragon to be near holiness. It makes us want to follow it." The last she spoke very quietly. In front of Luna Inverse, part of Ceiphied yet all human and proud of it, it felt like a shameful thing to say.

"You let those things in your mind when you channel them for directions. Are you sure they don't rig the door when they left?"

"I don't feel very different than before I became a priestess, miss Luna. I can't say much else."

"I can. Ever wondered why the fragments of Ceiphied and Ragradia attached to a human soul and not dragon souls? Maybe the fragments did, once, but those souls don't last."

"Let's hope that's not the reason," Filia said. She'd become weary of saying she was sure of anything in this world.

"I'd feel better having certainty, but Rangort can give me a hard time too if I mess with its plans. Come to Zephyria once you're done, I want to check whether you were tampered with."

"Miss Luna, don't you think you're trying to see doom a little too hard?"

"Nah, I don't. The worst you can lose in the world is yourself. You'd being willing to die for some people, but think about it for a second. It's just your life you'd lose. If you lose yourself, you might not be the kind of person to care anymore about those people."

"I ... " Filia didn't know what to say to that. The Sages and Knights, organic and astral; identity wasn't the same for them.

"What exactly do the dragons want with fusion magic? That shit's scary, you know. It can be controlled without spells, that's some mighty mental component to it. Want the dragons and gods to have that?"

"I don't believe the dragons would misuse its power. We've never been out for conquering lands and I honestly don't believe mister Milgazia and mister Azonge have such intentions."

"Side effects happen. You got a kid out of death. A kid clean of his former life, right? Mostly anyway."

"Don't. Not here. Let's talk another time."

"Better be soon. What magic's in the place?"

"The power of the Claire Bible and the remnant of Ragradia," Filia said. "I don't think the power of Lei Magnus has much influence."

"Get familiar with it."

"I will. Goodnight, miss Luna."

"S'morning here."

"Oh really? It's that late already? Even with the time difference, that shou—"

"Filia. Clowns. Clocks."

"Hnnnngh ... _off course _he did."

"That's not your crystal ball, is it?"

"No," Filia said, dropping her head to her hand and trying to figure out how to explain this to the Elders.

"Gonna be fine. In fact, my little sister tends to mention funny details in her letters. Apparently, Milgazia knows a spell from the Beastmaster. Ask him to teach you. It can't hurt to have some dark magic at hand."

Filia managed a smile. Luna suggested a potentially touchy fact to be used for blackmail. Well, _that_ was something Filia didn't mind doing if it was for the right reasons, or at least non-harmful reasons.

**· · · · · · ·**


	6. Zelas's Chain

**· · · · · · ·**

Zelas served purpose with a topping of devilish blasphemy. Today's restaurant was the kingdom Zephyria, a reeking place that was a good for committing suicide if one were of the criminal bend, or at least get free vacancy and board behind bars.

Sight across the astral plane was often more limited than an open physical space, but Zephyria downright absurd. White magic littered the astral plane like bat droppings in a cave, even one as keen and powerful as Zelas had difficulty seeing. Worst yet, she would be seen all the easier by the Eternal Queen.

To reach Zephyr City she had to rely on physical landmarks, so she flew high and withdrew her expanse as tightly as possible. Near the city was a long stretch of forest, she dropped down near a town. There was only the slightest ripple in the magical flow. Satisfied with her lack of impact, she hooked her arms behind her back and walked.

To the east, Zephyr City cast itself against the young dawn, a tall silhouette filled with stars brighter than in the sky. A city of spells, yet ironically not the capital of white magic. The Eternal Queen surrounded herself with shamanic magic of all kinds, forging an kingdom on the willing backs of spirits as much as on humans. In the shadow of her might lay idyllic towns.

Blind eyed, Zelas passed the old forest where nymphs were ever watching so no predator harmed humans, passed orchards with ever healthy grapes curtsy of a pact with fayfolk. The hidden folk paid mind to humans and honor to the queen. No great crime would go unseen under the eyes of the Eternal Queen.

Zelas snorted at paradise. Convenient for the humans _now_, but if Liliane ever died the queendom would be left not knowing how to balance itself with natural order.

"Any misgivings, lady?" An early farmer leaned across an obnoxiously neat stone wall, eggs he'd gathered still in hand.

She would have liked to spell out her many misgivings with this land, but that would be useless. Instead, she smiled as she sauntered up.

"Misgivings with myself, mister farmer. I am to seeking to challenge the Knight of Ceiphied to combat, but I'm afraid I lost my way around here after taking a short cut. Please tell me where I am," she said.

"The Knight, eh, not just a knight? Figures. Didn't the parents give you a map?"

"Unfortunately, I have not had the honor to meet the Inverse parents. I was recommended by a man she fought at the time she was moving out of their home, he was aware of no such custom."

The farmer frowned. "She always has her challengers spend money in her parent's shop before accepting, that's common knowledge. Was it really a man you spoke to?"

Oops. Zelas could concoct a web of lies to make herself seem credible, but didn't have the patience. Liliane saw dark magic used on humans, but Zelas could make do with simply warping a tiny bit of space to deprive the heart of its oxygen.

Clutching his chest, the human fell to his knees. She returned oxygen just before Megiddo caught him.

"Tell me where she lives, please."

Horrified disbelief tinting his miasma as he looked up. Tasty. Would he already be considered devil nature, or was he trying to figure out what arcane spell she used?

"Sh-she's not on the official records, she's got this cottage over at Ineuris Wald's north corner, near the Maral village. Please don't—ghhhnnn"

She savored the moment he thought he'd die. There was no need to kill for one to harvest the emotions of dread, honestly. He fainted by lack of oxygen, and Zelas conjured the eggs he'd dropped back together in his basket. Let him assume he dreamed it all.

If Zephyria's Arcadia was an insult to natural balance, Luna's queendom was a kick in the groin.

Luna's home lay less so at the edge of the forest than it had dug into it. In theory, it was a quaint little cottage surrounded by a fitting rose garden and neat lawn, in practice it a prison compound. Fairies addicted to holy power lived in the hedges, working to keep everything neat with a disturbing rhythm for such freeborne spirits. The very flow itself was tamed into canals.

Flying from below her parent's wings seemed to have cut her loose from her last restraints, she now forged the world around her as clay. Oddly enough, this was no choice she had made on her own. After that little incident at the Eternal Palace, she'd been kicked out of Zephyr City.

Ironic, consider it was because of Liliane's titles and Luna's membership that it had become popular to refer to hosts of godly power as Knights. However, Luna was nothing more. The new Knight of Ceiphied was really young, a mere 26 years old. 27 years ago the previous incarnation had committed suicide, one more Knight who had gained longevity before learning loneliness.

There were no legends of Ceiphied Reborn, as there once had been. Not Ceiphied's Chosen, not Ceiphied's Child. Just Ceiphied's Knight, a title shared with other sorcerers. Luna had never left Zephyria to be either hero, mercenary or grave robber. Evil was only her problem insofar it bothered her simple life. How was she like this when her parents and sister had the blood of adventure? Was she as tamed as the flow around her?

Zelas leaped over the hedge and was instantly beset with by a guard of three trolls. They pointed spears at her that were designed more with elegance than with lethality in mind, complimented with cheap armor that couldn't be conceived useful even if one assumed their employer did not know trolls regenerated.

"Stop! In name of lady Luna!"

"I have already stopped, mister Troll."

"Eh ... right. Now what?" They shared confused looks.

"Now you may sleep."

Zelas astrally invoked their innate darkness. They started snoring before they even hit the ground.

The garden revealed a flippant yet militant vibe. All plants were in neat rows and the lawn was mowed perfectly, yet color coordination was far to be sought and many plants had no business standing at one another's side. Tacky lawn gnomes completed the disorderly order.

What was missing was the vibration of any sort of holy power from the house even as Zelas touched the walls. Luna was not home.

There was one other, however. The scent of werewolf was thick in the air, yet mingled strangely with troll. Curiosity got the better of Zelas and followed it.

On the other side of the house there was an stable sized doghouse, to which a hybrid of troll and werewolf was chained. He was asleep, but only lightly. When Zelas stepped onto the peddle path, his head shot up.

"Greetings, mister ..." She hesitated as she read the name printed over the doghouse entrance.

Spot.

He didn't even have any spots.

Now this was just unreasonable. Such a strong creature tied up like a common house pet, a vanity to show off? There was having fun with weaklings and then there was wasting potential.

"What is your _real_ name?"

He hesitated, lips slightly curled up.

"Tell me yours first. What are you to get past the trolls without me hearing anything?"

"Tell me, mister, are you a dangerous criminal who can't be trusted to go free without disturbing order?"

He growled lowly. "You'd not know anyway if I told the truth or not."

"Creatures that lie are tickled by their own brain. I can taste the subtle change in their miasma when it happens."

His fur rose and aggression rolled off of him as he realized it.

"What does my past matter to a devil?"

"Your answer will decide how I will treat the lady who chained you up. A creature like you could be so much more useful, I won't think highly of a person who acts on whims."

"I used to be useful, it got me nowhere."

"Then perhaps your leader of once upon a time was not much better than the one you have now. Who was he or she?"

"Maybe I worked on my own."

Zelas shook her head. "No, that's not quite right. If you were the sort to be useful only to yourself, you would not be in chains you could break if you desired such."

"Hmm. You'd know my former master. Lezo, the red priest."

"Oh my. It is ironic that you come from the service of a host of Shabranigdu into that of the host of Ceiphied's corpse. Would you care to share the story?"

The memory must have upset him enough that he overcame his reluctance to talk.

"I was defeated by the defecting members of my team, who were loyal to that damn Zelgadis. I wandered off, unable to properly heal due to malnutrition. I must have collapsed, because I woke somewhere in a yard I had not seen before. She saved my life."

In other words, Luna had known nothing. She did this without real meaning.

"Yet denied you your name and agency. May I speculate she simply favors pets and did not act out of altruism? I hear she likes cats too. What do you owe her, that you don't try to leave?"

"I already told you, my life!"

Zelas smiled wryly. "If you wish to pay her back, perhaps you ought to do so in a way that suits you better than this."

"It's none of your business," he growled, rising to full height. The chain just barely allowed him to stand straight.

"You may be right about that. Well, thank you for your answers, if you'd please indulge me one more question? Where is your lady now?"

Her only answer was increased tension and an adorable attempt at a deadly glare. Zelas idly tapped her fingers on her hip. "I shall find her regardless of your silence, but the sooner, the better my mood, mister Not Spot."

There was a thunderous crash in the forest to the west.

"Never mind, I have my answer," Zelas said, turning on her heel in one graceful arc. "Is she trying to impose order on the forest? She may have great power, but that she never will manage."

"She's expecting guests."

"Oh? How nice," she purred. "Let's see whether I can guess before I ask her."

Guessing was very easy. As Zelas wandered into the forest, the flow thickening in rivers towards one point of holy power. A beacon was being set up. Most likely, Luna was expecting the Ul Copt pack to teleport in and did not want her prim and proper home wrecked by any full sized dragons. Was Filia's pack planning to escape Kataart, or had it been Luna's idea to prepare?

There was a general scarcity of details irking her lately. Even today, she was going on a trail of grains, most of them from the reports of Xelloss. He had traveled at her side for the short journey of Project Shabby Host 3.

After meeting Luna again, Filia had stopped feeling guilty over not praying anymore, replacing her zeal with trepidation towards the gods. What had she learned?

Liliane and Luna did not get along very well, with spite from Luna's side and a condescending disappointment from Liliane's side. Why exactly?

Xelloss had also told her that Luna was aware of the astral side, but the clarity of her sight was no better than the indistinct spells of elves. Likely, Zelas would not be able to hold a whole conversation with her purely on the astral plane, while former incarnations had been able to sink deeper into the astral plane.

How had Luna reacted when the barrier came down and the gods could contact her? _Had_ they contacted her at all? Had she?

Her human form was visible before the shroud of vibrating magic allowed her to be seen astrally. She stood in an expanding meadow, directing trolls on clearing out trees. Aside of her was what appeared a simple stone hill, but it was embedded with a magical circle that found root in Luna's power.

Luna was beautiful by human standards, but had the air of one who didn't care. Casual loose clothes, bangs so low they covered eyes and her lips in a stiff line, she wasn't inviting anyone but those with a liking for mystery.

Zelas stifled a chuckle when the familiar sight of Luna's lovely mystery emerged. With regular souls, the form of the astral body conformed to that of their physical shape. Facial features and hair were details lost, but something like a missing arm and general build were reflected. Anomalies existed, Val's astral body was brimming with barely contained power that fluctuated every moment, but nevertheless his human form was visible underneath the feathers.

But Luna Inverse, she was a true chimera. The outline of her physical body was buried below a contorted astral form far larger than herself. A skinned, headless neck hang aside her and the four burning tendrils coiled without directing. Bony wings stuck out from the main body, which looked like a stretched ribcage with rotting muscles across it.

What a fate for the highest god of light, to have become a corpse sown to a mortal soul. Being Luna Inverse had done it no favors. A power such as this would have an advantage in this place of strong flows, but she noticed nothing.

What a disappointment. Zelas had known prior incarnations that had honed their potential to the point of sensing better than actual astral creatures. She deliberately stepped on a branch way too loudly, hurling herself up at the same time Luna's head whipped around.

Zelas flew across the clearing and landed on a high branch on the opposite side. Below, Luna ordered her trolls to fan out. Smart as a move, yet uncaring. She was vastly more powerful than her trolls, she did not need them here. Sending them away was the most reasonable.

A poor sense of pack added to her profile on Luna. It wasn't unexpected, considering her sister lived in fear of her.

Passing over the trolls, she jumped right behind Luna. The human whirled around at once, power flaring in a burst of white flames as she sensed what her opponent was. She drew her sword, filling it with force.

"Perhaps a friendlier welcome is in place, lady Ceiphied. You have no idea what you are up against," Zelas said, placing her hands on her hips and making a point of looking unimpressed.

"Heard that before. Let's get this over with," she said. No passion, no thrill, just irritation and the seed of fury. No fear or worry either, Zelas noticed. Xelloss was correct, Luna was really near sighted on the astral plane.

"I'm not here to fight you, lady Ceiphied. I'm here to tell you congratulations, you got the job."

"Ah, one of those morons who think I could take an immortality pledge. Waste of time," Luna said. "And stop calling me that."

Not would, but could ... she'd take it if she _could_? Perhaps she had already tried.

"I fear you're wrong. Why would I waste my time on such when I know as astral chimera, you could easily make yourself immortal?"

Luna gave off a sharp bitterness. Bullseye.

"So what _do _you want?"

Hmm, what exactly? Something to make this go smooth, something to entice her to silence rather than dropping a note to the dragons or Liliane.

_Perhaps she had already tried._

Knights had an easier time than Sages in keeping their body young and healthy due to their level of innate magic, but their knowledge was limited and they needed someone to teach them. With the only Sage available being Liliane, it had been hosts of Shabranigdu whom had taught prior Knights. Laust had not educated her, Liliane had not either so it appeared.

How annoying must it be for Luna to be living right under the Eternal Queen and knowing she herself would die within a century.

"I want to hire you."

"Get off my land or I'll destroy you."

"Honestly, lady Ceiphied, I—" She twisted aside to dodge the wave of white fire thrown at her. "... will be gone all the sooner if you listen."

"No devil's got anything of interest to me," Luna said, jumping ahead with surprising agility. Zelas backflipped out of the way and landed on her toes, taking back two steps. Luna followed with one step, cautious but still reeled along.

"You say we can have no conversation as long as you can move to fight? I see, lady Ceiphied."

Luna gave a lopsided smirk, the obnoxious kind of an arrogant person who believes they got a fool to grasp something simple. Zelas wanted to claw that smirk off of her face, but that would be pointlessly violent.

Instead, she went for something a little more subtle.

One of Zelas's favorite forms of hunt was to reel in predators by feigned to be weakening prey, all the while chipping away at their defenses.

Dropping her human projection, she took the guise of a ragged shaman with a bleeding deer skill in place of a head and a bone staff in its hands. It was a form of her young days when spooking tribes had still been a fun pastime, hardly used now save for prey whom she wanted to unsettle. The form moved like a corpse, jerking unnaturally and just the right kind of wrong to be in the uncanny valley.

Luna knew what her own astral body looked like. She was a cold fury, but below her anger it unsettled her far more than the usual human because it reminded her of the mirror. It unsettled her, making her just a little too emotional in her combat.

Zelas played along in the battle dance by giving the illusion of an equal fight, feigning to be injured and driven closer to the trees. There was a trick to dispersing her power across a wider area, poor limited Luna only saw a core of power and never realized how much strength was before her.

When they were deep enough into the dark forest, Zelas began to trick her into leveling trees. Not because Zelas needed it, but because it annoyed Luna and her sense of order. Letting one fake wound gush darkness, she fell back against a tree. Luna went for the kill, burned sword impacting just as Zelas jumped away. The tree behind her took the brunt.

Rinse, repeat, bring the human off her balance. By the time seven trees had met this fate, the sun's first rays were crossing the forest threshold.

"You're making a mess out of my project," Luna said evenly, in spite of her building emotional feast.

"Am I? I beg to differ, Lady Ceiphied. If I may say so, you could pay off a country's debt with the amount you're underestimating the size of an Ancient Dragon."

"_Don't _call me that," she snapped after a startled, to Zelas's disappointment. She had hoped Luna would try to find out how she knew about Ancient Dragons.

"Well then, I shall call you lady Corpse."

Strike once, dodge then, curl away next. Luna's anger was delicious, she wielded it as a shield of concentration rather then being hindered by it. It would have been lovely if Zelas hadn't known it to be so wasted.

By now, Luna was started to realize her opponent was holding back. She stopped advancing and lowered the sword a little.

"What is your name?"

Zelas let her skull break away. On the astral plane, Ceiphied's corpse jerked.

"What did you want to talk about anyway?"

Zelas still said nothing.

"Cat got your tongue?"

Oh, that was just too good to pass up. She left the shaman form and drew together into another projection, all power focused on a small white cat with orange spots sitting on a fallen tree. On the astral plane however, she converged into her true form, that of the bright winged werewolf.

Behind her low bangs, Luna's eyes widened as she realized who she was looking at.

_Now _she felt fear and Zelas purred.

For one as powerful as Luna Inverse, there were not much chances to practice true courage.

Role reversal? Delicious for Zelas, unknown to Luna.

The human turned tail and ran for the beacon.

"Lady Corpse, do you truly wish the Beast Master to _hunt _you? Even if you active the beacon, the Sage of Ragradia will not be able to make a difference, and who else would you call?"

Luna didn't respond more than throwing up a force field around herself.

Zelas jumped off her perch, pushing her true form onto the physical plane. Luna was not quick enough by a long shot. A clawed hand dug into her back and with a sickening crack, the human was slammed against the ground.

Zelas hovered her jaws near Luna's head and said, "Now would be a good time to speak, don't you say?"

Luna didn't say anything.

She didn't move much either.

One of the trolls that still were around said, "Eh, dark lord beast master, I think she's unconscious."

Well, this was embarrassing. Zelas been instinctively hunted on her knowledge of prior incarnations, who had a lot more experience with automatic regeneration and using their power to strengthen their body. Luna was as breakable as a human underneath her primitive shield. Zelas had gotten carried away as if we she were a pup.

She stood straight, brushed some leaves off of her dress and flexed her wings. "It'd be much obliged if you and your companions kept this little incident silent, mister Troll."

"Eh ... what silent?"

Bless Shabranigdu for stupid trolls.

Zelas slung Luna over her shoulder, not willing to risk a warped space and tip off Liliane. At an easy jog, she reached the edge of the forest. She could have flown to the cottage, but to be contrary she just walked through the hedge and door, not moving aside any wood in her way. When she dropped Luna to the floor, the act came with a shower of hedge and wood splinters.

Off course, Luna's house was orderly. The garden was worse, but Zelas still found nothing to admire inside. There was a lot of practical treasure like an ebony coffee table inlaid with gems, a rack of expensive wine and a collection of colorful books. A picture of her family hung on a wall and there was a mace with a ribbon around it in a corner. Nothing really matched, the only universal trait being cleanliness.

Everything was square and linear, there was reason but no rhyme. With a gleeful look, she flared her wings and wagged her feline tail as she walked through the place, knocked over select furniture and breaking glass. She went out the other door without opening that one either, allowing her to emerge of the garden side with the doghouse.

The hybrid was on was already on his feet and snarling, the marks in the sand indicated he had tried getting loose. When Zelas approached, he slashed at her. She just grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back. A bone broke, but he could regenerate.

Her actual target was the chain that bound him. She snapped it off the doghouse and cut the collar with her nails.

Pushing him away, she said "I would say it is your choice to run or stay, but I taste it to be useless. Ah well, go ahead, she's inside."

He rushed past her, leaving Zelas the time alone to summon a sliver of red stone. She pushed it in the iron collar, along with a custom enchantment.

Inside, the hybrid had set straight the couch and laid Luna on it. She commended him for not being stupid enough to try to flee. Anyone who could deal with Luna could catch up easily.

Ceiphied's power was already stirring to heal her damaged ribs and spine, but she wasn't awake yet. At leisure, Zelas closed the collar around her neck. The hybrid watched her the entire time, but did not interfere.

This done, it was time to ransack the kitchen. She turned into her human form, the aristrocrat this time, for the benefit of taste buds. Having done so, she claimed the dinner room table, a stash of liquor, pretzels and wine soaked peaches. Luna had excellent taste in food, Zelas had to admit. Really good. It soothed down her irritation a little.

Luna regained the ability to speak around the time Zelas was halfway through the pretzels. She shot up only to cringe as the dark power in the collar flared. Both her hands tried to grasp it, but were burned.

"Don't bwodder, wady gworps. I'm swongur den you, you dun standa chanef breaging d' spell on it," Zelas said from the kitchen table.

Barely visible through her thick bangs, Luna narrowed her eyes. Not at Zelas, but at the messy house and the crumbs on the table.

"You're not gonna clean that up, are you?"

Zelas stopped chewing. She had expected a less blasé response from a person waking up to find their home taken over by a lord of darkness.

"Unfortunately, you are in no position to worry about trivialities."

"Was beating the shit out of me a triviality too?"

"Yes, off course. A rather relevant one, if I may say so. You _are_ finally sitting still and listening."

Luna swung her legs to the ground, leaned back and spread her arms across the back of the couch. As if she were still lord and master.

"What'ya want?"

"First of all, your attention. I thought you might like to know that my people have decided that your little sister is an impassable obstacle to world destruction. The little lady keeps getting involved in such grand matters, it is difficult to ignore her. Do you get letters?"

"Our parents do. I don't care." Zelas tasted a lie, but only a mild one.

"You should ask them about it."

"Why? Lina can take care of herself."

"Can she really? This is the first time she is not a tool but the prime target, Gaav non withstanding. He was limited in resources."

"I've been a prime target my entire life long. I have a hard time believing she'd be a bigger problem." Still a tasty lie, she _was_ worried.

Zelas laughed, but it was a cover for deeper dissent.

"_Bigger than you_? Do not flatter yourself. We allow young devils to bounce off on you to see whether they grow wits quick enough to deserve more complex missions than cannon fodder. Now miss Lina, she is a true problem. Give her another 10 years and she shall have burned through the remaining three pieces of Shabranigdu as well. All we devils would have is an ice lolly."

"Get to the point."

"I can offer you something you want, which is up for your consideration off course. In exchange, I would like—"

"Good grief, can you talk normal? You use so much words when you can just say, like, _let's trade_ or _you stink_."

Zelas gritted her teeth and did her best not to rise to the bait.

"My point is that I want you to search and find your sister in order to ensure her survival."

"Hmm. Ask Rangort."

"Earthlord Rangort is unfortunately detained in hell," Zelas said. "And even if they were not, we don't want the other gods to know we are seeking out miss Lina and we especially don't want the devils to know. Anything Earthlord Rangort or I do to find her will catch attention. On the other hand, you have a credible and unremarkable reason to ask a god to find your sister."

"Ask the bubbly one from Sailoon if you want credible. She's Lina's best friend."

"Unfortunately, they are already involved in the plan in other conspicuous ways."

"Are they now?"

"Would you like to know?"

Luna shook her head, and this time she meant it. "What's the offer? My life?"

Zelas abandoned the pretzels to pick up the end of the chain, playing the end between her fingers. "I would not offer such a drab thing. Hunting you down would draw too much attention, should you choose to double cross me. Make no mistake, this here is security, but I find my associates cooperate better if they work for a reward."

"Luna, don't listen to her," the hybrid said. "Just earlier she tried to convince me to ditch you."

"Oh, did she?" Luna crossed her arms. "Don't worry, Spot. I know how devils deal, especially her organization. Sneaky little bastards who pays theirs debts, but only in the ways they sees fit. Maybe she thinks rewarding me is 'spicing' up my life or something."

Zelas couldn't keep from growling. That little brat not only accused her of duplicity, she dismissed the actions of her priest as worthless, and acted as if he were just an extension of her. As if she'd failed to put work into his individuality.

"What? It's true, isn't it? Pretty easy to figure out how the devil wolves tick, once you met one."

"Your power may be great, but your wisdom leaves a lot to be desired if you think you're a master of minds. What is next, will you be telling me your mental age is so much further than your physical one?"

"You threw over the most fancy furniture, but not the table or the wine rack. Obvious method to your chaos, what you like stays whole. I'm not something you like."

With a few steps, she stood before the couch and leaned over, one hand against the wall. Turning her eyes to slits and spreading bloodlust through the air, she brought the human back on edge.

Luna was a quick learner. Fearful, but with enough self control to not let it show, save for the hairs rising in her neck. A true Inverse alright.

"Ruining things for the sake of ruin is ridiculous, but your farce of a home is a ruin in a different way. Yes, it disgusts me as do you," she said. "You are by all means and measures the most powerful human on this planet. You could hold your own against most devils, you could wipe out armies on a whim. Start a war, end a war, build an empire. Yet you are here without aspiration, gathering together nothing but this disturbed order. Off course you'd accuse another of meaningless payment?"

Luna tilted her head back so that her hangs fell away. Sharp red eyes glared back at her.

"You exist just to destroy all yet you preach to me about meaning? I squander a power I did not ask for and I enjoy life. What about it?"

"But you won't be doing that for long, now will you?"

Luna's emotional miasma betrayed the hornet's nest that Zelas had just set on fire. She decided to add some oil.

"Afterlife hardly was comfortable for anyone in the past five thousand years. Being able to hurl yourself into Megiddo despite your astral identity not having faded? Many wished for that under Fibrizo's rule."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better about my incoming cessation of existence? I chose nothing! Whatever past versions of this soul did has nothing to do with me!" Luna snapped. On the lower layers of the astral plane, Ceiphied's corpse roared.

"That is supposed to make you think about what you really want. See, Earthlord Rangort is rebuilding hell into elysium. You would not enjoy it at all, though. This god only plays nice, but only to those who behave. At best you are indifferent, and at worst ... well, you had a sapient creature chained up in the backyard."

"Hmm."

"I can arrange it so that you will get into elysium."

"Ah, I see. If I decide to stay dead, you avoid the risk that the next Knight of Ceiphied might actually do shit. Must have hurt, learning the Knight of Shabranigdu was so damn heroic."

Zelas leaned back and grinned. "You catch on quick."

She didn't catch on right, off course. Zelas felt an idle regret, how much less annoying would today have been if she had _not_ killed the heroic incarnations of Ceiphied's fragment?

"How would you be able to arrange that with Rangort? How did you even get a god to listen to you?"

"Were you not there, at the fight against miss Lina's third Shabranigdu? You must admit my priest did some suspicious things for a devil. In fact, isn't he doing suspicious things right now over in Kataart?"

"Huh ... I just thought he was going mad. You all go mad when you figure out the fallacies of the system."

She thought for a long time. Zelas didn't move as she waited.

"... Okay then. I'm in. Now get this thing off."

"I shall have to decline. Should you choose to double cross me, that is my method to give you a quick ticket to reincarnation." She tossed the chain in Luna's lap.

Luna stood up slowly, eyes no longer visible. Zelas was a head taller than the woman, yet it felt like it didn't matter when on the astral plane, Ceiphied's corpse dangled before her. Then Luna pushed past her.

"Spot, start packing," she hissed. "We're going to have a chat with Valwin."

That confidence answered at least one question. She was wise enough to avoid Vrabazard, but Luna had _not_ spoken to the gods or she would be far more weary of the idea that Valwin might answer her.

Not that it mattered. As long as Luna was on the move.

**· · · · · · ·**


	7. Xelloss's Penrose

**· · · · · · ·**

Xelloss's relation to Filia's lifestyle had been breaking things, _making_ things was not in his skill set. Or interests. Or job description. Or nature.

Yet here he was, cross-legged on holy ground amidst sacred waters of a reviving temple, making things.

It needs to be understood that a master of puzzles may still be stumped when asked to create a image to place on a puzzle. Certain people are arrogant enough to try anyway, only to fail miserably. Xelloss had always considered such people amusing up until the point he became one.

Filia had been smug for the past hour.

Oh, he could magically imitate things he'd seen before, but Filia was dangerously familiar with the artistic world of vases and pottery. After the third time she had caught him recreating someone else's work, he had been forced to admit he was taking short cuts. This had resulted in a lengthy speech on why this was cheating and the heavy handed insinuation he was afraid she might have more than one thing to teach him. Devil of all trades surely only devilish trades, so she claimed.

He couldn't let that slide, so he set out to prove he could make these vessels just fine on his own, thank you very much. No staff, no reconstruction magic, just hands, spinning cones and his own imagination.

"You really are lucky your true form was not in your metaphorical hands. Who knows how much more ridiculous than a cone it would have been if it had been _your_ decision. My, you might have counted as a handicapped devil."

"This just so happens to be my personal style. Merely because it does not suit _your _tastes does not mean it is poor work."

"Ha! That's what people say who are too weak to acknowledge failure."

"Weak? As if I'd need to prove myself towards you!"

Just to show her the point, he grabbed a slab of clay and created an artistically distorted triangle along with a smooth boring triangle. "See? This is the boring one, and this here is my style."

"Xelloss, that thing defies the laws of dimension and space."

"Must you always be so demanding?"

"Yes, I must be! Being dissatisfied drives one to improvement. That's why my vases only break when you knock them over, while yours break themselves or ... Xelloss, doesn't that hurt?"

He turned an eye down, followed her startled look. His hand had dissolved in a spatial anomaly cause by the impossible loop, and it had taken his body sense along.

"No, it doesn't. Don't worry." It was most inconvenient though.

Damn mathematics.

No. Wait. Was damning mathematics an affront to the Lord of Nightmares? Would She know this and be dissapointed?

While he pondered this grave question and tried to regenerate his hand, Filia resumed her work by pursing her lips, creating a needle thin ray of laserbreath. Using this she engraved her vessels with intricate patterns and a subtle flow of holy magic across its surface. As she was on her knees, she had the air of prayer.

Ironically, it was her who lacked any religious devotion in her work. Xelloss was perhaps unaware of the grand scheme of his lord, but he and Zelas had spoken often enough for him to know they were serving in the motions of chaos. It was a thrilling truth to know himself as an agent of the Bearer Of Light.

And in the name of Chaos, he probably should stop worrying about possible affronts and do something fun. He gave into the temptation of brushing a finger across her neck, hooking along a strand of gold hair. With her so lost in concentration, the results were bound to be lovely.

One small touch caused her to tense up instantly. Her hair floofed out and the needle ray turned wide at the same time as her head snapped up. The vessel in her hands was spared destruction, but three others in front of her were not.

This would never get old.

"Oh my, I'm so sorry, Elders!"

That wasn't the response he'd wanted.

Milgazia, Azonge and three lieutenants whom he vaguely recognized from the war clutched the doorposts. Xelloss recognized most of them from the war, they had been quick enough to evade him and smart enough to stay away, a skill they had not lost if their dodging of Filia's errant ray was any indication. There was so much hatred coming off of them Xelloss felt like Lina before an all you can eat buffet. Helplessness flavored their resentment in the most delicious way, for they hated not only him here, but also their own weakness.

Filia chose this tactful moment to slam wet clay in his face. "It's his fault! I normally never lose control of my laserbreath!"

Stark terror pushed to the forefront of the dragons that weren't Filia, who simply felt apologetic and somewhat gloaty.

Xelloss chose this tactful moment to manifest four small cones behind Filia's back, quietly lifting the water bowl as he peeled the clay off his face with distracting slowness. "Really, miss Filia, you expect them to believe that? They still haven't fixed that wall you so viciously attacked upon my arrival."

"That was your fault too!"

The bucket was slapped away by a golden tail. He leaned back just in time to avoid it.

"I saw their eyes move," Filia said with a smirk.

"Filia, what are you two doing?" Milgazia asked monotonously while waving off a delicious mixture of desperation, confusion and spiritual loss. That last one was particularly fantastic in flavor. How indeed would someone like Milgazia explain this absurd situation?

"_I_ am making better vessels. _He_ is just slowing me down," Filia said, puffing up her cheeks. She waved broadly at the (to her) mishapen creations that were scattered around Xelloss.

"Those are vessels?"

"Yes, but you don't have to use his. They're defective and the new ones he'll make will be more practical and not eat hands." Did she realize she was spicing them?

They were not fond of her vessels either, he noticed in the next inhaling of miasma.

Hers were smoother and resembled actual pottery, but were adorned with cats, maces, vulpen and other beastfolk, dragons and unicorns, embezzled with the occasional flower pattern or swirls.

The sad part was that this was still better than what the dragons had come up with : dragon shaped statues engraved with ovelry solemn sayings about warding off evil in runescript, which just oozed Milgazia's cutting boredom and Azonge's boastful dullness.

It took the dragons half a minute before they decided what to say, a time span not helped by Xelloss cracking one eye open and staring at them with an all too pleasant smile.

Filia waited all the time for what she thought would be praise.

"I'm afraid we will have to ask you to ... they are very ... "

"What is it?" Filia asked. She didn't snap at dragon elders like she did at him, but it tasted almost the same.

"Make something less human looking. Simpler. If we are to use tools at all, they ought to reflect their origins, not common household decorations. The shapes we had in our prior vessels are most convenient and worthy."

The miasma that accompanied rebellion was one of many neutral tastes. Defiance could be fueled by a need to do the right thing, or a desire to just ditch the restrictive rules. He could feed on it just fine, though it was tasteless. Filia always felt a little intimidated by elders, but that wouldn't hold her down long. Any second now ...

"But the vessels you are making are too weak! I've seen them used before and they can break just by pushing them together a little too hard, and yours are even worse! Vessels shouldn't be like scripture cubes! What I'm doing here is making them in a more sturdy way, they _need _to be rounded."

"You should trust her on this. Miss Filia would know all about pottery since it's the meaning of her life."

Oh, finally! That did it. She snapped her head at him and ...

Her nostrils flared and her miasma spiked, but she _didn't_ shout anything.

"I'm glad you finally admit my expertise, albeit with such silly exageration," she said with a haughty hairflip. Turning back to their visitors, she said, "You don't need to check up on us, Elders, I'll let you know once _I'm_ done getting Xelloss up to date with the art."

Oh, come now. It was getting harder and harder to get a rise out of her. She had to be quietly reasoning with herself to make those feelings behave. That probably was a required skill to running a shop, but ... was he honestly competing with her brief history with customers being always right?

"Is it necesary you misuse your laserbreath in such a way?" Milgazia tried.

"It is not misuse! My engravings are very shallow and they aid in the magical structure. I invented it myself."

The dragons were edging out of the room, however, because Xelloss had lost his cool again. Smoothing out his expressions he smiled at them, which only unsettled them more.

Filia used the window of distraction to ram more wet clay in his face. This time, he returned the favor.

All in honor of ancient feuds, off course. Not at all because he wasn't self controlled enough to endure this particular golden dragon.

**· · · · · · ·**

In between vessels, Xelloss investigated the exact status of the dragons. He had as little clue as anyone else what had started the tension, so it wasn't even an entirely horrible task even if it meant the company of dreary dragons. He might learn something new.

The northern dragons were involved in empowering the kingdom of Dills, largely because for once they hoped to beat the devils to getting the hook in. No devil could be there unnoticed with dragons and elves all over the place. They were also in contact with the western wind dragons, who had no interest at all in human kingdoms. Wisely, they did not speak to them about their local project. Their vision spells, even when conducted through crystal balls, were too unsafe from prying astral eyes. Besides, surely the gods would tell the other dragons what was occurring.

Surely not, Xelloss knew.

This led to delightfully confusing conversations when the wind dragons had a vastly more depressing idea of how well warfare against devils would go, while the water dragons came across as crazy with their poor attempts at coded talk. _Magic grabby shields shall make a great difference_, really?

Nothing was said about Xelloss. Milgazia came close to alluding to a temporary ally, but had been assured by said ally that it was to his best interest not to speak of this to anyone outside of the mountains.

The more complicated details of his involvement with the dragons would be dealt with by Earthlord Rangort. This god had subtly seized the northern lands by using Fibrizo's access point to Hell in the Desert of Destruction. By filling the framework of the barrier with her power, certain places could be hazed from Vrabazard's view. At most, a look to the north would tell Vrabazard the dragons were more anxious lately, but the god wasn't likely to pry over that and notice that small missing patch.

Which was just as well, considering the new time frame.

Xelloss had believed his job had been to escort Filia below this barrier, and then be done with it. The plan, whatever it was, wouldn't be happening for a few more years. He returned to Wolfpack Island expecting a different mission only to be sent to Kataart to assassinate certain devils, and then retrieve fusion magic vessels. He was given the parting words that he'd figure the rest out on his own. Well, it fell in place when he arrived to find there were no functional vessels, but there was _her_.

It was one thing to spend a few hours taunting Filia, it was another thing entirely to be _educated_ by one with such a foul tongue as hers.

Four months he had to endure this before he had mastered holy teleportation, along with a detailed vow to only use it to bring people _out _of trouble, and suffering through one tasteless insult after another. When Xelloss needed something from her, it meant a reversal of power that she latched onto with claws and teeth. He did not look forward to a repeat, but that was exactly what he had to face.

No matter how much vases he broke, in the end she could forge new vases while he was still seen as the avatar of all filth, worthless to regard. Her looks, her very feeling told him this. He couldn't truly win even if she had a thousand vases for him to trick her into ruining.

It was an ongoing assault of psychological warfare. Amelia at least knew what she did to him, he had needed to betray them before she played mean. Not so with Filia. With Filia, it came naturally. She just knew how to get under his skin, how to shake up his self image that was so vital to a devil's integrity.

Truth be said, not as vital for him as it was for other devils. But it was the principle of the thing.

Then there were dragon related duties of an entirely different nature ...

"Is the principle of the thing worth risking your mission? You should spend less time contesting Filia and more time securing the area. Why is the boy allowed to even go out?"

"I don't see any harm in him played with miss Memphis and mister Jillas. I have ascertained she is spooked by what she sees on the astral plane and is unlikely to cast the spell that allows her to see there. Furthermore, their destructive play keeps the more curious dragons at bay."

"That was playing? Oh my, what has become of my gift of wisdom? I honestly believed that was exercise."

"Personally I'd commend the little elf for her risky tastes. Perhaps you too can learn a varying concept of play. I recall you putting in quite some effort into the role of weak old lady."

"Heheh ... I was. Though, you are wrong to assume it was play. It was effort to exist. This persona was amongst the last thoughts of the water dragon king, that is all."

"How disappointing."

"I see not why. Your idea of play often does not leave you happy. At least, not from what I have recently observed."

"Let's say it is the overall experience that I favor."

"How so?"

"I'm afraid that may simply be too complex for you to understand yet."

"Don't get condescending with me, Beast Priest."

"I meant no offense, honestly. It is simply that you have not been very ... how do I say this? Not very interested in evolution."

"I think I'm capable of amusement after all."

"Really? What makes you think that?"

"I experienced a favorable emotion by being lectured about evolution by someone who won't evolve because of the principle of the thing."

"That's a completely different situation!"

**· · · · · · ·**

At dawn, he passed by Filia to feed on her miasma, curtsy of her nightmares.

**· · · · · · ·**

Filia had demanded a kiln within the work hall as the dragons in charge of the regular kilns were too clumsy for her liking. Paranoia was involved, curtsy by Val, Jillas, Gravos and Molly breaking things. He earned theoretical credit too, but really, that was a matter of her just being distracted too easily.

It was on the left side of the entrance, not too far from their work spot but far enough so that Xelloss couldn't feign accidentally redirecting a canal into it. The vessels they had forged the prior evening would be just about done right now. Xelloss floated above their work spot, waiting for Filia to open the kiln.

"Xelloss! You put that triangle in here!"

"Oh my, oops. I did?"

"Yes!" She whirled around and pointed at the kiln. "The inside is five times bigger than before and all the vases have converged into this ... this _thing_ that shouldn't exist. You put it out of its misery right away!"

"Always a drama queen, are you not? It can't be that bad."

"Take a look yourself!"

Preparing the understatement of the century, he stuck his head into the kiln and looked.

And looked.

And looked.

The unshape.

The mathematic crime.

Exist not.

Cannot be.

Yet it was.

He should have realized that the dimension would unstable on an area where a god had died. While not as severe as in the center of the demons ocean, there were certain exploitations that could be ...

"I have sinned against our Mother ..." he muttered.

Horrified, Xelloss exploded the kiln with blue fire and plenty of spacial reconstruction. He phased to the opposite of the hall and hunched in a corner, eyes wide open and arms around his knees. Gloomy shadows surrounded him.

"You sewer priest! You could have at least tried to get our vessels out! How are we going to see whether they worked?"

Xelloss needed an hour and then some before he could think about that.

Filia was in the middle of building a new kiln by the time he rejoined the land of the coherently thinking. A pile of rubble was what remained of the ... unthing ... lay in a heap near the door with a neat little note for the clean up crew, which contained an apology that roundly blamed the garbage on the other garbage. He'd have tampered with the message, but something drew his attention. The vessels Filia had made were in pieces, but recognizable pieces. His vessels were only recognizable because they kept his fire burning.

Well, this was embarrassing.

The foremost step was to build vessels that could hold magic. Xelloss knew a thing or two about the structure of magical containers, he had investigated the soul jars in Taforashia at leisure. _Off course_ Amelia had sent Filia a soul jars for her collection, so Filia was just as up to date but couldn't possibly be better. That meant that there was something fundamentally wrong with his approach.

The door creaked up and Xelloss was hit with a wave of nutritious but bland miasma and astral distortion. Val peeked in, blood on face and hair.

"Mom?"

Just like that, entertaining Filia vacated for troubled Filia. She set down the bricks she'd been holding and ran over.

"Val! What happened?"

As he stepped in, he turned his eyes down. There were more than a few gashes on him. Filia pulled a cloth from her gem's subspace and gently dabbed at the wounds.

"I was out helping Jillas with his new cannons when a few devils attacked us ... Memphis killed them, but one of them got to me ... I killed that one." His voice was shaking, but Xelloss tasted not so much fear as he tasted exhilaration. "I didn't know I could ... I just breathed on him once, you know, laserbreath, and he died. Heh ... didn't need to try clawing at it ... Are you angry that I killed it?"

"Oh, Val. It's okay, that was just self defense." She pulled him closer and lifted the jacket, revealing more gashes on his back. A restrained transformation, most likely. Xelloss couldn't tell.

Val's astral body was technically normal, but he cast a shadow on the astral plane that was roughly that of his true form at his appropriate age. It would be interesting to learn whether the failed transformation was self sabotage or a spell by the attacker, but there was no way to discover right now. In any case, he would have to do something about the exposure risk.

"Val, sit down and I'll clean these wounds. I have to make sure there are no infections before I heal them, understand? Otherwise the spell might help the germs."

"Okay."

Filia took Val to one of the canals that had an alcove while questioning him about the exact events. Xelloss started humming, finding time went too slow when it came to Val leaving. He wanted back to work and that brat out of his sight.

When Filia was done, Val kicked that hope in the gut by picking up one of Xelloss's earlier vessels, which had been in the kiln before the nocturnal batch.

"Looks like garbage," he said.

"Indeed it does," Filia said, voice tinted with motherly pride and schadenfreude.

"Hey, mom, wanna try doing fusion magic? I bet we can do it better than you with Evil Wizard Cone Thingy."

Filia was thrilled with the idea of not needing Xelloss for fusion magic. Eagerly, she knelt at his side and told him just how to tap into the magic. She was so happy with the idea, it was a personal affront, really.

Xelloss crossed his arms and leaned against the kiln, observing the scene with one eye open and all of his astral senses alert.

Filia created a light spell in her hands, and Val held the vessel ahead of himself.

Nothing. Not even a glimmer of darkness leaked out of Val's vessel.

Xelloss raised a finger and cheerfully said, "It may be his unusual magical construction getting in the way. Or maybe he's just pathetic at magic. Probably the latter. I mean, how much clothes did he wreck again?"

"Shut up, trash! Val controls magic excellently for his age!" She ran a hand over the boy's head and soothingly added, "It's probably just because you're not a channel for Shabranigdu, like he is, and this vessel is defective. For the prophecy we were part of, I believe the gods did something special to the flow that allowed us to conduct more power than we could wield and combine it. Let's try when there are proper fusion magic vessels with a connection. Then you shall see we can do fusion magic much better than I can with Xelloss."

That's what it was to Filia, just a gimmick installed by higher powers. It betrayed a concrete lack of respect for the complexity of magic, especially something so difficult Xelloss didn't even get it. Outwardly though, he just kept smiling.

"I guess that makes sense. I bet we can do awesome things, like erase devils. They're made out of magic, right? Maybe we can make Xelloss a lot weaker, I bet he won't be so rude anymore! If he survives it."

Filia's smile turned stiff. "Let's not speculate that far ahead, Val. Xelloss may be a nuisance, but he doesn't need to die now. Nobody should die for such shallow reason, okay."

"Hmmhmm."

Filia liked to tell herself he was just a good, solemn little kid, but she had no experience with children of any sort. Val was too serious for a seven year old. He felt no trepidation at devil aura because he was used to it, but he had an innate fear for golden dragons. Sometimes he had that look in his eyes, the same potential for obsession.

It took something as severe as a casual mention of murder for her to see Valgaav, but she was quick to shove it aside.

"Can't you two do fusion magic to show me how it's done?" Val asked.

Ah, there it was. That nasty little question they had been avoiding. Xelloss and Filia _could_ fuse magic alright if their goal was the same. They just couldn't _wield_ it all that well, as had become painfully evident three years ago. Now, Luna and Laust couldn't even fuse magic, but there was still that final step they needed Lina for.

What exactly did the trick was a riddle to Xelloss.

When those royal children with their shallow bond, undefined goals and lack of magic experience knocked together the vessels, it had glowed white a little, chaffed away at the offensive energy and then exploded around them.

In contrast, out of those same vessels Amelia and Zelgadis had brought forth a highly controlled web of black light which neatly absorbed all the energy they meant it to absorb, but left Lina's spell alone. Amelia and Zelgadis were experienced magic users with a far more profound familiarity to one another's magical resonance. To date, they were the only duo to have successfully wielded fusion magic.

When Xelloss had taken Filia's energy and merged it with his own, there was no blending at all. It remained a cloud of darkness with some yellow streaks and paid no effect on the seal, contrast to the instantaneous effect of the former two scenarios. Possibly because there were no actual two wielders, or no concord, or their goals were too different.

When they had channeled the energies of Ceiphied and Shabranigdu and the effect had yet again been different : a cloud of white burning with a net of darkness. It had been Lina alone who had directed it, but the magic had been in the hands of Xelloss and Filia. At Lina's command, it turned to gold. A similar thing had happened in the battle against the third Shabranigdu.

He set aside the last scenarios, as Lina had been host to the Sea of Chaos and thus the most unknown factor.

The other three ... There had to be rhyme and reason somewhere but it was far to be sought, and for once Xelloss was _not_ entertained by this. Unpredictable scenarios were only fun if _he _was the engineer behind it.

**· · · · · · ·**

"There are thirty six lesser devils that have noticed him when he went out today. Don't slack off, beast priest, alright?"

"Hmmmph. Do those idiots not understand the dangers of going near a rabid Zenaffa wielding girl?"

"You have entirely too over reaching ideas of the intelligence of devils in this area. It is only the fools that remain."

"I suppose we will have no conversation tonight then."

"Yes, unfortunately. I was looking forward to tea."

"I was under the impression you never were capable of consuming tea."

"True, but I can pretend. It comes with this persona, you see, as it once did with yours."

"A shame you never got to live it."

"Ah, a shame indeed. And a lie too. I can't say I honestly need this persona once we are done."

"My self of long ago would have reasoned similarly, yet here I am."

"There's no guarantee how I would turn out. Be on your way, beast priest. Rangort will give additional directions."

**· · · · · · ·**

At dawn he found Filia already awake, in their work hall and dunking her head in the basin.

He stepped on her tail, and she shot up. Her tail she curled around her legs protectively as she glared at him.

"My my, picking up local customs? I hear many a dragon uses this tactic to recover from mister Milgazia's jokes."

"I don't have tea, alright? I need to do something to be awake properly! Off course, a devil like you wouldn't get that."

"You realize I eat emotions, do you not?"

"That's _knowing _them, not getting it. You _couldn't_ understand how it feels to lack sleep."

He could imagine it, though. The principle was being low on energy, but he wasn't affected by thing such as headache and tired muscles.

As she wrung her hair out in a towel, Xelloss could see the exhaustion in her movements. She was not physically ill, but the mental costs of the very sympathy she praised as a wisdom called a heavy tax. So much worry for the fate of her child that it could throw her off balance. At that price, Xelloss had no interest in understanding.

Then again, granny Aqua had no interest in understanding anything he advertised. It was no mere theory that mental facets looked very different from inside the madness.

He wasn't quite mad enough to experiment with understanding exhaustion though, he liked his mind and projection just fine.

"Xelloss, I have a question. We are allies again and more than ever, how we cooperate is important. In the interest of that, can you give me a straight answer?"

Normally he would have given a diagonal answer to that, but she'd take that as a no and drop it. That might just complicate things for the reason she had mentioned. How they cooperated ...

"That depends on what you'll ask me."

"Whose idea was it, this whole plot to have us here and working on these vessels? Why?"

"That is a secret," he said happily. He planned to pepper the conversation with that phrase.

Instead of the usual frustration, she only sighed as she gave him a flat stare.

"Doesn't that get boring?"

"What?"

"At some point, people get used to you keeping secrets and learn not to be irritated by it. What do you have left then?"

Gourry had effectively used that against him already, actually. Not that she needed to know.

"Was that your question? Well, that is easily answered, I'll have —"

"No, that wasn't it."

Still that flat stare. They were falling out of the rhythm and he didn't like it one bit.

"Can I and my family expect to suffer the consequences of this plot? Miss Luna disappeared, I have no idea who the big bad enemy is and I'm in the middle of a golden dragon colony with a toddler of a nation that believes he is inherently violent. I'm helping you, the least you can do is warn me when we should run."

Xelloss hated not knowing enough, and he hated that she had to inadvertently point this out.

"I do not know what the plan is and I have heard no word or implication of miss Luna being involved by us. Perhaps the dragons managed to recruit her after all."

"As if!"

"A well placed sleep spell—"

"Miss Luna isn't dense, Xelloss."

"But she is young and inexperienced."

"No, we're not doing this. We're off topic again. Xelloss, you can _guess_ the plan."

"No. Lord Beastmaster has deemed is necessary not to tell me the goal. But ... I can say this. Six years ago, I went to see whether I could repay a favor I owed to Aqualord Ragradia. I discovered certain things which I strongly suspect inspired my lord to set certain events in motion. What I discovered is a main component of the plan, while your involvement extends to the providing of fusion magic vessels. Nothing about the current plan should send you fleeing, but I cannot predict the dragons."

One of the devious things about languages with no difference between singular and multiple you was that you could tell the truth about one individual, while the other would assume it to be multiple.

She tilted her head to the side. "How did you come to owe a favor to a god?"

"Surely miss Lina told you of her first confrontation with Gaav? I didn't get out of the desert on my own, you see. The Aqualord teleported me out along with the others, even though she had to send her power out of the way for this. Perhaps it was merely so I would continue protecting miss Lina, but that doesn't matter."

"That is how the Aqualord was, was she? She truly must have cared to allow as many as possible to live. Is what remains of her involved too?"

"Indirectly, yes."

With a deep breath, she turned to the statue of the broken god and didn't regard him anymore. It was a stolen moment of rapture, a small indulgence when she fell back into her priestess self and forgot to be ashamed of holiness. Still he tasted that deep sensation of a person who had to let go of their faith. Xelloss found it difficult to imagine what mind accompanied this feeling, though. For him no world had ever existed where there was a higher power taking care of the deserving.

The holiness in return acknowledged her with a gentle ripple across the water. That was how the illusion of divine sympathy laid in the minds of those seeking to believe, but reality was nothing more than one form of magic responding to another as chemicals did to their environment. Did she grasp that much now?

Ah well, it did nothing for him to understand that aspect of her. He knew what it was and how it functioned, that was enough. How she felt wasn't his concern as long as she didn't get too desperate. When she got taken over by sorrow, she observed but the most personal of details and forgot the whole picture. She was useless in such times.

Not to mention far less entertaining.

It wasn't sorrow, however, that suddenly took her now. It was a slumbering rage waking.

"If Earthlord Rangort is in on this ... " Her brow furrowed and her eyes narrowed, her fists balling together in sudden rage. "Xelloss, doesn't it bother you to be pushed around by a stronger being?"

"It does if it is anyone other than lord Beastmaster. Alas, Fibrizo did not last long after he did such," Xelloss said with a chuckle, waving a hand as if merely dismissing a fly.

"I meant her. Zelas Metallium."

"I have every reason to assume that what lord Beastmaster desires is something I will enjoy as well. I may not like all my orders, but we want the same and _you have no business questioning my lord_. In fact, that is lord Beastmaster to you."

"I like Slimy Hairball better," Filia said dismissively, her eyes still fixed on the statue.

Xelloss fazed before her, looking down with both eyes open. "You have no right to refer to her in such a way! Really, you and miss Luna, what do you even want to achieve with your stupid nickname habit?"

She looked at him now, still unimpressed. "What do _you and Zelas want_?"

It was so clear what question lay on the tip of her tongue, but she never asked. Sometimes he wanted her to.

"Take it back," he snapped, but it fell on barren ground. She just glared back at him, and the canals flooded out, burning him.

He withdrew to the astral plane and spent the rest of the day searching for loose witness ends.

**· · · · · · ·**

"Can you tell me anything about what happened today?"

"Resonance of a designated channel with Ceiphied's power. You should experience a similar thing when close to any piece of Shabranigdu, correct?"

"As a matter of fact, I do not."

"Strange. Perhaps it is because she has access to the flow in a way a being such as you cannot. I was busy scrying for more witnesses, so you tell me, what did you argue on?"

"She questioned me about what might lay in store for her and implied we are responsible for the missing of miss Luna. I suspect spiritual difficulties."

"Are you responsible?"

"Not to my knowledge. She didn't even thank me for being open!"

"She thinks your lord may be, and that you might hide it indirectly. Let me tell you something about faith, or rather, my favorite dish. There are a lot of ways one can have faith, for some it is belief, for others it ties strongly into their moral code. Oh, don't interrupt me, I know you know all this. But did you ever think about how faith exists in every relationship? The poor girl can't afford much faith, not even in you. That is exactly because she knows what you are and can guess what your creator is like."

"She isn't supposed to have faith in me, that would sorely disappoint me. It would mean she is a fool."

"Just hope she won't end up distrusting you too much then."

"No, that would be impractical."

"If you admit that, why are you stalling? Evolution, no?"

**· · · · · · ·**

At dawn, he woke her from a nightmare and was repaid with a hurled vase. The worrisome part was that she didn't even seem to realize it was him until he turned the lights on. In this moment, he saw her self just before she pulled the shroud of duty back over her face.

It wasn't an act when she was the cheerful mother, but it was missing a lot of things that made her Filia. Val sucked all the fun out of Filia.

**· · · · · · ·**

"Alright."

"Alright what?"

"Show me how you make a stable vessels, I'm getting tired of being here more than I'm tired of your attitude."

She stared at him wide eyed, but said nothing. Instead she grabbed one of his hands, pulled off the glove and inspected his skin.

"The texture isn't useful. Project something more like worker's hands. A little roughness works best with this type of clay."

She was right, he realized as he worked on his next slab of clay, spinning atop of a cone.

Silence and spite was the work motto for the day. He wasn't in the mood for taunting her and instead fed on her many other negative emotions, though this left him mentally unsatisfied.

It was depressing that this meant far quicker progress. They went through several builds of vessel and pinned down the right magic to contain light and darkness.

Near the end of the day, Xelloss had suggested to make the vessels entirely out of metal to begin with, but Filia wouldn't hear any of it. She could work metal too, but claimed there was something about clay that was superior to metal.

"Care to elaborate on that? I've never heard such a thing before. Metal should do just fine."

That's when she did it. She raised a finger to her smirk and said, "It's a secret."

**· · · · · · ·**

"Who does she think she is, using my own catchphrase against me?"

"Metal conducts energy, clay is a better isolator. This reflects even in shamanistic magic."

"That is not the point!"

"What is?"

"It's not important." He set down the first stable holy vessel on the ever shifting floor. "Try it."

A wire of light folded out, rapidly became thick and finally converged into the illusion of a small old elf. She tapped the vessel with her staff, which passed though the clay but stirred the magic within.

"There is no other half yet, is there?"

"We have not yet figured out how to create a flow between the vessels, but it should happen soon."

"Can you two wield fusion magic yet?"

"Unfortunately, no," he said, scratching the back of his head. "I don't think I'm likely to have a similar goal as her when she's acting like that. She insulted lord Beastmaster and stole my catchphrase. I cannot cooperate with a dragon like that!"

"You're as much of a problem, don't you think so? You've complained about her for years yet you still lose your cool over such a little thing as a nickname and a catchphrase."

He chuckled nervously. "Anyway, anymore witnesses?"

"No, you were successful. I did however noticed something else. Ever since that little incident, the boy has been searching for a place to hide on his own. He appears to be following something and generally strays towards the entrance of the Claire Bible. Bring him here, will you?"

Xelloss had to consider this.

The up side would be that if he wouldn't have to worry about elves with astral sight spells and devils. He wasn't comfortable though with bringing an anomaly like Val close to an unstable entity that he very much needed alive.

"I can keep him hidden in the maze far better than you can outside, you know this. Also, if he is attacked here by devils, he can use his full power without risk of discovery. There is space for full out transformation too."

"Hmm ... and after that little incident, it would be credible to the dragons and elves if Filia were to keep him indoors. I'm am more worried what will happen to you, should you touch his strange shadow."

"I will keep my distance, don't worry."

"Perhaps you could attempt to entertain him? Not only will it be easier to convince him to stay put, you might attempt to feed on his miasma."

"That'll be fine. Say, he is the son of the one who destroyed my first stage, is he not?"

"I would not say so. This is his third life, he is the son of miss Filia, not of Gaav."

"I find this question much akin to whether or not I am the Aqualord or Granny Aqua. As with that question, you fail the point."

"You retain memory of all these lives, he does not."

"He retains personality, I do not. Bring him here, I'm curious what we can sort out about one another."

He really shouldn't now he knew she planned to _poke_. But it would be so interesting and he might get some answers. Besides, who was he to discourage people poking at things?

Especially since she might stop poking at anything at all otherwise. The construct he spoke with was no real person, just a program vaguely imprinted on raw power. It had to start changing and growing, and so far Xelloss had not succeeded in pushing her that far.

"I'll be back in in a minute."

He found Val wandering on the slope below the entrance, unable to go higher without growing his wings. The moonless night could cover him, but he had been told that it took a mere lightning spell and a curious dragon to betray him, so Filia had made him promise not to fly unless in emergency. That he was keeping, even if he had obviously broken the rule to stay inside at night.

The boy seemed to follow something, but Xelloss detected no magic. Off course, this didn't mean there was no magic, merely that whatever it was was in range of Val's shadow.

Xelloss hopped over to him.

"Hello, Val. What would you be doing out here so late?"

"You're here again?" He looked straight up at him, though Xelloss saw no source of light. There was a hint of suspicion coming from the child.

"Again? What do you mean?"

"There was a trail of feathers. Last time I followed it, I was being chased and it led me to you. Though it takes a lot longer now. I can't find a way, the trail keeps changing or stopping ... and right now it's still pointing away from you, so it's not you."

Xelloss's hadn't been waiting in that meadow, he had just followed the dragons as they followed Val. It certainly was unusual though the child survived long enough for Xelloss to catch up when he had been so far away. From the sound of it, whatever caused this trail had some radar for danger, likely changing path to avoid curious devils. Oh, how annoyed that he couldn't see what was up with the boy.

"Perhaps I can get you where you want to go?"

"To the door you go through every night?"

"How ... why do you think that?"

"Mom dreamed that and I got curious, and then the feathers appeared. What do you do there?"

"Let's say I need more endurable company than the local dragons when your mother sleeps."

Val's suspiciousness of him ebbed away further. Xelloss had long since found out that anti-dragon sentiment was a good way to get the boy on his side.

"Someone's in there? It's not another bad dragon then?"

"No, she is not. She is a memory of someone who was too stubborn to properly die. A quite admirable lady, I must say. Unfortunately, she rather lack drive and passion. Perhaps you can help her and she will hide you in return."

"Huh ... okay. Mom's finally sleeping, but it's okay if I go with you, right?"

"Naturally!" Xelloss grabbed his leg and flew up the slope, child dangling upside down all the way.

"Hey! That's mean!" Val hissed.

"Have you forgotten I'm a devil?"

He flicked him to the ground before the portal and watched whether his strange astral form would affect the magic. It did cause a haze, but nothing severe. The principle behind the entrance was akin to Filia's teleportation, though stagnant. As expected, it remained stable.

Val was still sitting on the ground, rubbing his head. "You don't always have to be such a jerk."

"Now now, don't complain over such a small thing. You're starting to sound too much like miss Filia."

Truth be said, that was preferable to him sounding like Valgaav, which would be more like heretic rants about the injustice of the Lord of Nightmares.

"Val, hold onto my cloak. Inside is a maze that lies a little towards the astral plane. It means weaker devils will be able to manifest, so you may encounter some that are stupid enough to try and get you lost."

They passed through the radiant portal to land into the strange zone of the Claire Bible's space. Val's eyes almost popped out of his head as he realized the very fabric of matter constantly changed. Sometimes it was a landscape of crystals, only to ebb into biomechanic halls, and then blank blue space, and back again. It didn't happen as smoothly or rapidly as it once had, so Xelloss was told. Gaav's attack had done some damage.

"What now?"

"We walk about two thousand miles, but don't worry, it takes a few steps if we have the right space below our feet," Xelloss said.

Val prodded the ground with his feet before unfolding his wings.

"You can do the steps," he said, a little shakily. Still holding onto the cloak, Val followed flying. "So, this place is the bible? That's a weird name for a place. What's the girl's name? Claire?"

"Ehm ... I suppose you can call her Claire if she approves. I'm not sure you should call her a girl, though."

Xelloss wasn't entirely sure what was here, actually.

When Aqualord Ragradia died, the remnants of her astral body found souls to attach to. Her power went into the Knight of the Aqualord, her knowledge into the Claire Bible and her wisdom went into the Queen of Zephyria. And then there are the kind of memories that make up personalities. They are inevitably tied to knowledge, but a little bit extra. Gaav had nearly eradicated this remnant, but within the Claire Bible itself there was a sort of ... remnant of the remnant.

It was a little of a god and Val wasn't keen on gods. Whether this was Filia's raising, Luna's influence or remnants from the past he could not tell. Either way, it was better to let him form an opinion before a prejudice played up.

It was a good thing she didn't look like a god or dragon in the Aqua form. A tiny old elf was a strange choice but ...

... oh.

"Is that her?"

Up ahead was a wide crystal that slowly morphed into a dark platform. Atop this sat a humanoid roughly the size of Granny Aqua, and with the very same magical vibration. Aside of the white dress and blue cloak, she looked nothing like the former though. She was young, with blue hair and teal eyes that lacked pupils. From below her blue cloak stuck a set of batwings. In her own way, she mirrored Val.

She smiled and waved at Val. "Hello! I'm Claire! Will you be my playmate?"

Xelloss suppressed a chuckle when he recognized the hairstyle, a thick low tied ponytail arranged so it fell over her shoulder. A fitting homage to the most aquatic adventure Lina Inverse had been part of. It would be no surprise if a taste for octopus would reveal itself in the imminent future.

"What am I supposed to do?" Val asked, waving back hesitantly. "And why does she have wings? You said she was no dragon!"

"I'm not an enemy dragon, don't worry!" she called. "I'm not even a real dragon, I just thought I'd have wings since you did."

"Just play with her. I will be back in the morning." He prodded Val in the back, towards her.

Val looked over his shoulder, but then found his resolve and flew over to her. The newly named Claire stood up, flapping her wings and widening her smile. The expression she produced was a tad artificial, indicating her limited behavioral patterns, but he'd seen worse. (He'd seen Milgazia, who could do only as much as look blank, frown and sometimes smirk.)

Xelloss left the Claire Bible, but didn't stray far from the entrance. If Val screwed up the dimensional balance, he would interfere. Just perhaps, he'd indulge himself and be mean about it.

Xellos didn't do grudges. It was pointless. However, if Valgaav shadowed through too much, it would be a matter of retaliation.

Valgaav had been an idiot wallowing in his own misery. He always could have had the life he led now if only he'd _allowed _himself to. Instead, he had been out to ruin this world and all its complexities, out to take away all choice — the choices of his lord and himself — raging after women who had done him no harm.

Even raging against the omega, the Lord of Nightmares. He had questioned Her, the One Being deserving of all respect in the world. He had tried to _subvert _Her Will.

Yet he still existed in some way. Xelloss could only accept it, but he still wanted to know why.

Perhaps it was Lina's golden nature, the touch of Her on her soul. Perhaps it was Volphied. Perhaps it was the creation magic. Perhaps it was just the system Valgaav had set up for the rebirth that he had promised. Perhaps it was a combination of some those things, perhaps it was all of them combined.

**· · · · · · ·**

At dawn, he found Filia in a panic because Val was gone.

He happily informed her he had a solution for the hiding issue, as he now wandered around in the Claire Bible and couldn't be found by anyone but him and its guardian. She called him garbage for taking her son without asking, but when Xelloss teleported said back back she was elated.

Just perhaps, he might have heard a _thank you_ in there.

"If there's an emergency, will you help us hide by bringing us to the Claire Bible, and out again, even if I'm done being useful?"

"Yes."

"That's good enough."

**· · · · · · ·**

Across the next days, Xelloss and Filia perfected their vessels to the point they could hold magic without a single leak, and they responded to the pull of magical command. The flow itself, well ... it didn't just happen, but he could pick up the details on the principles Filia had taught him years ago.

It was on the fifth day that they decided to mass fill the vessels by summoning the power of Shabranigdu and Ceiphied, from there on they'd try reverse engineering the flow. Xelloss realized it was easier than ever before, and in a quiet corner of his mind had to attribute it to Filia feeling safer. This allowed her energy to spread out.

She was under the impression that he'd gone out of his way to make her a little more at ease, and in turn, that made her a little easier to cooperate with. That was all it took? A little touch of trust? He hadn't thought _that _would be possible. Then again, he hadn't thought she'd ever rebel against her temple, aid him when he was injured or give him a sincere smile. Took a Götterdammerung, though.

Like it was the most casual thing, they drowned the hall in a cloud of black. The holy waters stilled and all magic but their own ceased.

Once again, the fusion looked different. More than ever Filia's affinity to a god of fire was apparent : the cloud filled with a prism of flame colored triangles, some of them impossible. The triangles might have been his doing, indirectly. A little imprint on local space, most likely. He was at liberty to see a sign in it, so he did.

It also gave a nice atmosphere, the kind that made Filia mesmerized for just long enough to let him concoct another abomination of clay.

When Filia retrieved herself from her admiration of the shiny, she noticed what he'd done.

"Xelloss, that rectangle can't exist logically! Why did you make another one?"

"Based on scenery and recent calculations of magical, spiritual and miasmic nature, I just concluded that the Lord of Nightmares is fine with this type of small sin too."

"You're hopeless ... what do you mean, too?"

"That's a secret."

**· · · · · · ·**


	8. Luna's Dismorphism

**· · · · · · ·**

Luna Inverse had many at her feet (bowing or bloody), few at her heart and little understanding of why she was this way. She'd stopped asking for reasons, but she was still interesting in ways.

Good grief, ways. There's the way of life, the way of earth, the way of countries, the way of every day life and the way of people out of their element. The most relevant way today was the way Luna had lost her way today.

She was on the other side of the globe in a jungle without man-made ways, which would explain part of it. As for the rest ...

Some would say it is a simple thing, to get lost. It wasn't. It really, really wasn't. For Luna wasn't a matter of pride or being framed, or spontaneous changes in the geography (she heard this happened a lot lately). No, for her it was the reality that people could run away from her in this land.

What would have been simple was to _not_ intimidate the guide she had hired.

It was just that he was such a little twerp, a messy eater, and he prayed every night to Ceiphied, complaining about the stuck up woman and her idiot pet and couldn't he just get a break? Luna was sorely tempted to answer it by making him shape up to realize his life wasn't that awful. So they'd started arguing, and every now and then Luna astrally poked him to bring him off balance.

After two days of that, he fled along with the money she'd paid.

In this strange land she couldn't pursue him, her title meant nothing and even if it would have, she had no authorities to appeal to get him brought to justice. It was a hard thing to kick someone's ass when you didn't know their whereabouts.

Or her own.

Before this disaster, getting a ride on a boat with a beastman in tow turned out obnoxious, and she'd given up on boats after a dragon almost spotted her while in the wide open. Rumors spoke of devil movement and dragon wars, a thousand year old fear rekindled. All in all, people were more than a little suspicious of the young woman with concealed eyes and werewolf wandering around. All sense of direction had been lost due to detours and one attempted arrest. And now this.

Her destination was the one place she knew where to have a private chat with Valwin, for which she needed a physical access point. Five years ago, Lina had visited these lands on a quest for adventure and off course had gotten wrapped up in the machinations of the astral. This had accumulated with her visited the dispassionate god Valwin to request he grant her power. The village tied to this temple had been destroyed in the ensuing battle against the devils, but if no one was there Luna planned to just figure out how to operate the temple herself.

Had she mentioned yet she didn't know where she or the damn temple was?

**· · · · · · ·**

Luna turned over under her thin blanket for the hundredth time. There was mosquitoes everywhere, it was burning hot and the local fairies couldn't be bribed into chasing them off. On top of that, the closer she drew to her destination, the stronger she heard prayers to Ceiphied.

The kind of things people revealed about themselves in prayers made her lose faith in humankind's future. Some people knew exactly they were selfish bastards and assumed it would be forgiven cause they acknowledged it. Others thought repeating the same words over and over was a show of faith and numbers strengthened the request. If Luna had been able to, she would have divinely told them all to shut up, Ceiphied was dead.

A mosquito stung her in the cheek just as she nearly had fallen asleep. With a sigh, Luna flared her power and everything not her possessions in a two meter radius burned to a crisp.

Spot had been asleep just fine, but when he smelled the fire he shot to his feet.

"Luna, what's wrong?"

"I am brimming with confidence and heroic resolve. Look at me brimming," Luna mumbled from below the blanket.

"You don't look so good."

"Spot, shut up. Need sleep."

The trek through the jungle learned Luna many things. For one, her physical body had no stamina for this. Two, she was childishly jealous of Spot and his isolating furcoat that protected him from warmth and branches. Three, bugs were horrible and had no respect for divine power.

"Luna, someone's coming."

"Wha?"

"A few miles to the north, a windrunner like Zelgadis. It's gotta be a holy one, my troll blood is averse to the wind he uses."

Luna shot up. "You're kidding."

"You know who it is?"

"A windrunner using holy power instead of shamanic? That's only worth it if one has innate holy power but no wings. Raise the fire."

Spot obeyed and she gave him a pat on the head before unsheathing her sword. She faced the direction the wind came from.

His name was Lyos, the Knight of the Aqualord and the only other human in the world who was like Luna. Lina had befriended him (off course) when they had gotten involved in a plot of Deep Sea Dolphin. The goal of that plot had been for Dolphin's priest Huraker to possess Lyos, exploiting a weakening of the soul as his power resonated with Valwin's power.

The fire was high by the time he appeared jumped through treetops. The holy wind that had sped his pace vanished the moment he stopped in a treetop about one hundred meters away.

"Spot, go hide in the forest."

"You're expecting a fight?" he asked before disappearing in the undergrowth.

"It's really coincidentally that he would be here at the same time I am. Last we heard he split with Lina to continue his traveling. Maybe a devil possessed him successfully some time after that."

Through the ribcage of Ceiphied she had limited astral sight, but Lyos's astral body was nearly half her own power and thus much larger than that of a human. She could see him even at this distance.

Ragradia on his soul was not skeletal like her own attachment, but more like someone had disemboweled the dragon and dumped the guts on him, then pumped it full with water. Blue veins crossed from the exposed heart beat and a broken windpipe floated like a flag underwater. A dried skin covered half the intestines, like someone had draped a dried out snake skin across the blob in an effort to conceal its malformation. Not much success there.

Lyos leaped down the tree and a little later he emerged at the opposite end of the clearing.

Luna tilted her head aside, letting one eye peek through her bangs. As a human, he looked like a man in his twenties. His hair really was something, it just went everywhere like it was addicted to static. Sparky would be a good name for him, but she'd use Lyos if he behaved. Given that smug grin, might not be long.

"I'd like to think you're here on friendly therms, but I can't know that for sure. Wanna fight me?" he said.

"Why? I'm Luna Inverse, can't you see?"

"Oh really? How am I supposed to know whether that's true?"

Luna would have thought her flaring dragon corpse was a dead give away, but from the sound of it he couldn't see onto the astral plane at all. Perhaps because his soul was covered entirely by the power? None of the corpse chunks on him were eyes either.

"Lina is missing, I want to ask Valwin to find her," she said. "And you are Lyos. Am I guessing right you want to fight me to learn more about the nature of my power? That is what drew you here, right?"

Lyos pulled the sword off his back. "Yep. No use fighting with those though. Both our powers stems from Ceiphied, they'd just dissolve into the flow. If you are Luna, nothing will happen but our swords. If you are more than Luna, I'll notice when we fight."

"Funny, I was curious about the exact same thing."

He pulled his sword off his back and Luna laughed. The sword was impractically wide, more like a prop you saw on rich kids who got a fancy play sword from their parents than a true weapon. She could feel its power, but it wouldn't have hurt it to be more useful in ordinary combat.

"Compensating for something?" she asked.

"Nah, it came like this. Maybe the guy before me," Lyos said with a dismissive shrug. "Whatever, it works."

Wasting no more words, he leaped at her. Luna blocked, dove to his left and lashed out, leading to his turn to block.

It did not deserve to be called a true battle, neither tried to kill the other or even wound. But it was no play either. Luna's timing was not what it could be. She usually depended on the astral plane to see what her opponent would do, since where they meant to move was often visible just a moment earlier. But here, there was no human outline to see.

Not helping was that her astral sight was limited to begin with. Luna's soul was molded onto the inner side of the spinal cord, her torso hanging forward by strands of flesh, stomach open and rotting as everything of the corpse did. A human she could read by looking through the ribcage, but Lyos's astral form was far larger than her field of vision and very erratic.

Her low bangs were suddenly a bad idea.

As expected, the energy they expelled blended together without doing any damage. The resonance was ... odd. Not even the air was affected. Still, amidst the assertion of power they could feel traces of one another, it was almost pleasant to blend like this. Luna detected nothing devilish about Lyos, but he most certainly did about Luna.

"What's that thing around your neck?" he asked between blows.

"Prank of a devil overlord. The other thing I'm going to ask Valwin about." A lie, off course, but it was easier this way.

"Really?"

For a second a dragon head overshadowed Lyos's physical form, solid enough to mask his next move. She didn't see the exactly angle of his sword until the hilt rammed against her fingers. For all her power, she was a human still. The pain loosened her grip and the next moment the sword sailed out of her hand.

Lyos held his sword aside her neck for a moment, grinning smugly. He tapped the collar.

"You fight like a devil. Foul," Luna said. She might have been more pissed off, but just didn't feel like it. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was aware this feeling made no sense.

"There's no cheating in battle," he said. "So, can I be sure that thing won't be a tool to control you at some point?"

"You can't, neither can I. Don't I have a right to find help?"

"As much as I did," he said. His grin turned a little wider.

With one move, he stuck the oversized sword on his back and looked around.

Thereby the battle was officially over, but the strange resonance stayed. The edges his astral form still blended with her own. Not only that, but ... she didn't really feel like wiping that smug grin off his face. It was as if she'd known him long already. Friend or family sounded wrong, but they were here together and everything was right. Luna just stood there, only vaguely aware of the details of the battle. All her mind was on that energetic change.

A step towards wholeness.

"Addictive, no? The resonance?"

"It's cool," she said as she wiped imaginary dirt off her clothes and looked away.

"Who's that? Your guide?" he asked with a nod to Spot.

"Nah, the guide ditched us. He's with me."

"You there, you can come closer!" he called to Spot. "Always glad to see people hang out with beast folk, they could use a friendlier reputation," he added for Luna.

Spot gave him a suspicious look as he approached, but Lyos ignored it and held out his hand. "What's your name? And don't say no name, that one's taken," he said with a laugh.

Spot gave Luna a pathetic look, but she didn't cave.

"I'm Spot," he muttered.

Lyos frowned. His miasma took on a bitter tinge, the kind of rising displeasure Luna knew herself so well. She would have bet he would have acted on it, but it didn't happen.

"So, eh ... Spot. Luna. Let's go to the village. Did Lina ever get that letter? They've rebuilt the place, I live there now and train warriors."

"No, we didn't get it, but I'm all for going there," Luna said with a dismissive shrug.

Lyos went ahead, a ball of light in his hand to show the way.

Spot threw their luggage over his shoulder and followed last in line. At one point, he whispered, "Luna, are you alright? You smell really weird, like you're upset but also like you're happy. It freaks me out."

"S'nothing. Drop it." One more lie today.

Lina had given bare few details about her adventure here, but one thing had been spelled out as the key of Deep Sea Dolphin's plot. Lyos had been driven out of his mind by an overload of godly resonance, bringing the complexity of his mind down to the point where the devil priest Huraker could possess him.

Luna had been in the kitchen when her parents handed her the letter, her mother had read it while Luna made pesto sauce. Luna had laughed about it, finished dinner and not slept a wink at night. Pesto sauce is a funny backdrop for learning she wasn't untouchable as a god-human chimera.

The reason the devils had used Lyos and not Luna likely was because he just happened to live closer to the god stupid enough to play right into the plot. If not for that, Luna might have been wielded instead. Luna would have gladly fallen to the belief she was too strong for that, but she knew the astral side. It was so easy to astrally damage a human, just to spook them a little. Devils she could deal with, but the exposure of godly power greater than her own was another thing. And for her, there would have been no brave Lina to pull her out. After all, she had made sure Lina feared and hated her.

The trek to the village was only two hours, they reached it just after the rise of the sun. With distaste, Luna realized that subconsciously she must have been drawn closer to the place, or perhaps to Lyos. If she wasn't even aware of the magnetic power of holiness, then she wouldn't know it either if she was altered. Her journey's forecast declared it was windy with a fair chance of insanity, but the driver had a devil chain around her neck and a wolf behind her. Metaphorically, not the troll werewolf hybrid. Therefore, she went ahead anyway.

The village was simple, straw hats on white round houses, inhabited by people with brown skin. She'd seen many such villages on her way here. Down at the sea lay the remnants of a ruin similar to the Ancient Ruins she'd seen in the east.

Its people were peaceful and their tranquility matched the quaint village. They didn't even fear when Spot passed by. When she saw the first leopard beastman, followed by a smaller catlike beastwoman, she understood why no one cared. Spot drew some attention only because wolves weren't common here and he was green.

Lyos led her into the largest hut, central to the village. Inside, a small council had gathered around tables and maps, speaking with what Luna guessed were traders.

"Hey, Orun, look what I found!" Lyos called.

When the council looked up, Luna tried to guess who might be the village leader. It was a small surprise when a petite woman stepped forward. She was brown skinned as most here, had wild white hair and an air that fit a church better than many in the church. Not what Luna expected. Putting aside that non-evil female rulers were all but unheard of outside Zephyria, she lacked the tough demeanor Luna expected in a leader.

"Orun, here's the weird flare we sensed. Luna Inverse. Luna, this is Orun, she's the leader of the village and she can operate the temple that can send you to the Tower of Wind."

"Pleased to meet you, Luna Inverse," Orun said, bowing slightly.

"Same," Luna said. She decided to let the lack of prefix slip, they likely had no such thing in these regions.

Orun excused herself with the traders she'd been negotiating with, during which Luna noticed Spot hadn't followed her in. His voice wasn't far off, so she pulled aside a heat curtain to lean out of a window.

Partially behind the curve of the wall, Spot was chatting with a human and some sort of antelope woman.

"Spot, did I give you permission to wander off?" Luna asked sweetly.

His ears flattened in submission and his tail shot between his legs. Slowly he turned. "No. I just thought it wasn't that far and—"

"Don't think. Do what you're told."

He picked up their luggage and scampered to join Luna inside.

"He wasn't bothering us," the beastwoman said.

"It's bothering me if I have to go find him. I don't plan to stay long." With that, she dropped the curtain and turned back.

Lyos stood there, arms crossed and reeking of irritation. "Just what the hell is that about?"

"What?"

Spot stumbled through the door at that moment.

"I didn't say get inside! Same rules as home, stay in sight but out of the shop zone," Luna told him.

"Off course, Luna, my mistake," he said, and he was out again.

"That," Lyos spat. There was a flare of rage, the kind that was born from rekindled memories. He better not be identifying her with that _m'lady_ of his, the devil in disguise.

The anger subsided, Luna could not tell whether it was resonance or his self control.

"Is something the matter?" asked a confused Orun as she rejoined them. Lyos bent closer to her and whispered something in her ear. Her eyes widened a little and she nodded.

"Please follow me," she said. "I shall have to return to work soon, so please hurry."

Orun led her to a small hut at the edge of the village, Lyos and Spot trailing behind. Lyos tried to make conversation with Spot, but Spot had caught onto Luna's mood and shut it off at every attempt.

The hut had only a fly curtain before it, so Luna peeked in after Orun entered and slammed her forehead into something solid. orun stumbled back against the cluttered wall.

Luna rubbed her forehead, pushing power to heal the bruise before it could form before she looked at the object Orun held.

It was only simple broom. Orun stood straight and held it out.

"If you want me to send you to Valwin, you must first prove yourself."

"Oh, we're playing the unworthy hero must become wiser quest game?" Luna asked, lifting the broom with overacted motions and inspecting it.

"This isn't for you. This is for my people. If this village is going to tolerate and feed you, then you pay them. You'll be embedding it with power, so it can be used against devils. After a while, I will see whether or not I feel comfortable sending someone like you to Valwin," Orun said a soft but firm voice. There was a little of a leader in her after all.

"Aren't either of you worried about Lina? You know, the missing sister?"

Lyos shrugged. "Lina will be fine where ever she is. Given what we heard and are seeing about you, we're probably doing her a favor not helping your family reunion."

"Fine," Luna said, and didn't say she planned to have a word with Lina about what exactly she had told them. "So, Sparky and Spiky, do I get a place to sleep? I need a bath too."

**· · · · · · ·**

Across the next day Luna was set to mundane, boring work like sweeping and other forms of cleaning. If this was where her lessons of humility were coming from, someone should have told these people she was a part time waitress. Mundane work was in no way a humiliation, Luna rather enjoyed it in fact. God (herself) knew the village could use some cleaning.

Orun spent most her day attending to village organization, supervising trade, overseeing business relations and settling disputes. Luna could think up a few ways to persuade her to send her on her way, but Lyos was always around. While he could not see the astral side, he could feel things in the way dragons did. Every time she tried astrally chipping at Orun, he noticed. He hadn't cast a spell on Orun; Luna suspected he might use the very moisture in the air as a way to keep track of his surroundings.

In fact, no spells existed here at all. Orun was a skilled wielder of resident magic, which she evoked from instruments and vessels that were tied to Valwin. Gestures of the hand was her dominant control method. Lyos could also control his innate magic with gestures, but often used his sword Banisher as a conduit. He claimed that since it had been barely five years since he'd learned to fight with magic properly and little else, Orun had a head start when it came to the flow. She had been trained since infancy.

Orun was a gentle woman, sometimes somber, often with a genuine smile and a kind but firm leader. She was what people would call a good human being without sense of irony or a need to say this as softener for some flaw. In fact, given the way the world worked around Luna's little sister, her existence just begged for there to be a more interesting evil twin somewhere. After all, where else would the fun be?

Luna felt like finding said sister and kicking her ass, anything to take her mind off this dusty town. She also closed a wager with Spot about the existence of said sister; not that Spot doubted her but she needed someone to bet against.

Three days after arrival, Orun was in the middle of some paperwork in her hut when Luna opened the door and slouched down on the chair opposite of her, one leg dangling over the armrest.

"Hey, my sister dropped a name in her letters I haven't placed yet. Fanan."

Orun froze.

"She ... she was my sister."

"Bullseye! Spot, I won the bet!" Luna hollered out the window. "That Fanan bitch was an evil twin!"

"Got it, Luna! I'll be getting snake now," Spot called back.

"Good boy. Make sure the poison's out," Luna said, satisfied as she sunk back in the chair.

Orun's miasma turned bitter, the kind of bitterness of those who had lost a loved one. Fanan was dead and Luna wondered why Lina had left the entire sister deal out of the letter. Meh, probably because she was afraid Luna would read too much into anything she said about dead sisters.

Luna expected Orun to change rooms (everyone had noticed by now Luna could not be made to leave if she did not want to).

"Snake?"

"I heard it tastes good."

"You would've sent him anyway even if you lost this ... this bet, wouldn't you?"

Luna shrugged, her smirk never ceasing.

Orun just clenched her fists and looked to the papers before her, doing a decent job to hide the depressive emotions that her sister's name summoned and the unsettled feeling Luna's eyeless presence caused. It was one of Luna's favorite things, how eerie people felt when they were stared at yet saw no eyes.

"I will not send you to Valwin if you keep acting like this."

Luna tapped her fingers on the armrest. "Yes, you will. It's just that I don't really feel like it right now."

Orun fiddled a little with her papers before continuing.

"How about dancing during one of the oncoming celebration?" Orun finally asked in a small voice. "Would you be interested?"

"Huh?"

"I-it is possible to command a small piece of godly power without touching the tools. This subtle wielding has kinder effects than the destruction they cause directly," she continued. "It is through a prayer dance we request this. Maybe you can fine tune your own powers into clairsentience."

"Desperate to get rid of me? The quickest way would be to let me see Valwin."

"I cannot let you do that."

"_Why not_?"

"Should you displease him, we may lose our magical tools or worse, the favorable wind we need to keep our fires burning. Valwin was once indifferent to humanity, but I'm sure you noticed his dragons are on the move. We do not want his negative attention, whether it is over your callous behavior or that strange chain around your neck."

"You're not the only one," Luna muttered.

"What do you mean?"

"Never mind. So why bring up that dance thing only now?"

"My sister's name reminded me. The dance requires two people to create a flow between them, she was my partner."

Luna folded her hands behind her head. "Hmmm. So you want me to take the part of your evil sister?"

Astrally she brushed a deformed claw past Orun's small self, not enough to harm her astral body, but it set her further on edge. As a holy woman, Orun had the smallest inkling of something being wrong.

"M-my sister ... my sister wasn't supposed to be evil."

Luna shrugged. "I don't care either way. Sure, I'll dance. No loss for me."

**· · · · · · ·**

The celebration was done every month to test fresh students and took place a few days later, giving Luna the time to grasp the basics of the performance. It would be done in the mostly rebuilt dome that doubled as transporter, temple and archive as part of one of several smaller celebrations native to these lands.

Luna let the preparations pass by and concentrated mostly on getting an outfit together that could hide that damn chain. Silver was the way to go, this smithing village had plenty. Lyos still had a connection with his mining hometown, so there was plenty of jewelry to go around. Very few things match with dog collar but Luna thought she did a fine job magic it work by mimicking the local shoulder ringers.

The celebration was simple, just this dance to be performed within the dome. Using said dome was new, the training beforehand had been outside. It was only since Lyos joining them that they would dance on sacred ground, because when he was around the devils did not dare approach when otherwise the holy magic would have drawn them in.

A sacred carved pattern at the center of the dome allowed a ring of people to stand around it, most of whom were family of the dancing pairs. The musicians had their place here as well, but the dancers would stand on the pattern.

Orun would begin it all. She stood on her toes in the middle of the pattern, raising an orange high in the tips of her fingers. On the first thrill of the strings, she dropped her heels and released the sphere, which remained afloat. Orun spread her arms, held the pose for a few seconds as the sphere lit inside.

She clapped her hands together. The sphere burst between her hands, clouding into a swarm of smaller orange spheres.

At this sign, couples broke from the ring around. Each tapped their fingers against one of the spheres and drew out a veil of light in mother of pearl colors. Luna too jumped in and tapped the same sphere as Orun did.

Each of the couples held the veil between their fingers as they moved to the rhythm, commanding it with wordless magic. The art was to keep the veils as substantial as possible and never to touch the spheres that remained afloat in their midst. Luna thought it could be called a game, but no one took her serious when she had said so.

At first the dance was just like in practice, but that changed as the magic of the pattern below their feet slowly responded to the items that were in alcoves all around. Holy power was drawn into the veils, bring along a warm, soft feeling. As the power grew denser, the people changed. Those that danced first, then those that watched on the sidelines.

The two women who had been squabbling about a goat's ownership settled their dispute, the children who felt bad over having been denied early candy no longer cared. White magic having soothing effects was not an unfamiliar concept to Luna, there had to be a shamanic side to this method. Or perhaps this was where white magic and holy magic truly had no difference.

The trance took a hold of her too, pulling her into sacred resonance with the world around.

All others were human, but she walked here as Ceiphied.

Valwin's presence she never saw or heard or truly felt, but she _knew_ it now. On this end of the world was the Tower of Wind, stark on its opposite was Vrabazard's home, the Pillar of Fire. Two holy nests, the Earth Bridge and Water Vein were without gods, but still had godly resonance, the latter more so than the former since Ragradia's corpse still was there to seal Lei Magnus. Deep between them burned a blue light, Megiddo beyond which Rangort's Hell lay.

As if it had always been knowledge to her.

As if the gods were immaculate, true creation of Ceiphied. Not a remaining scrap doomed to human souls. Not like her, but she didn't care for the rot anymore either.

Rot? She felt the start of healing. Even Lyos's astral form, which she could see far above the crowd that hid his mortal body, it didn't seem so bad anymore. Luna threw herself into the flow. She knew more the longer she danced.

The old battle long ago, Shabranigdu's ugly self disrupting the flow. The harmony of the flow, the detail of the world.

The humans around were insignificant, but so much closer. They thought this dance was beautiful, she could taste it in their miasma.

She remember Ceiphied eating miasma and feeling content. But Ceiphied never thought of anything as beautiful. It was irrelevant to a being from the astral plane. All Ceiphied needed was the flow and its instinct satisfied.

Luna didn't quite like that. There were a lot of things she thought were beautiful even if it didn't fit in her little sphere of need and self.

Right?

Not that she felt like leaving her town and seeing the world. Not that she cared. Not that she ever was a savior unless she had to.

Like the gods, she stayed at home if nothing bothered her.

As she danced now, she was fine with that, yet her conscious mind remembered herself feeling loathing to any parallel between her and the gods.

The flow pulled her along in the trance, save for the devil chain around her neck. A grain of sand in the oyster, but it was enough to keep her grounded enough for one thought to surface.

"~ _This is not me_. ~"

Building up resistance, Luna pushed herself out of the harmony. She dropped the veil.

All of the wide world returned to be only this room to her. Bland earthen walls and people in colors she did not like and music she did not care for. She was just Luna again, yet even now she did not stop feeling the immediate flow.

The music did not stop immediately, not until Orun herself stopped dancing. It took the woman a moment to find herself again. By then, every eye was on Luna.

Orun's hands twisted around the veils, pulling them closer to herself. Luna tasted the disappointment in her miasma.

"Are you tired? I'm sure you're not used to this heat, perhaps you should drink something ... ehm ..."

"What did you make me do?" Luna said with a calm, friendly voice. The kind of voice she used on troublesome customers that shouldn't know what she truly thought. "Whatever it was, it was not natural."

A chill took over the dome, every last conversation died as the air became thick with anger. The miasma of astral beings could become so intense even organic beings could sense it and while Luna was not quite murderous, it was strong enough to thicken.

"Then what happened?" Orun asked.

"Leeches in my mind. What am I supposed to do, ask the gods nicely so I'll stay sane?"

"Spirituality is not merely worship. It may be entirely about inflection," Orun gently said. "If you resonated like that with the world, it is by your own nature."

"I did not sign up for spirituality," Luna said. "What would I ascend to anyway? I'm already Ceiphied reborn, I don't need a link with the other pieces."

"You're not Ceiphied. Ceiphied's cessated," Lyos said behind her. "I'm no Ragradia either. We just have their power, that's all. None of their personality, knowledge and especially not a bloody right to disturb a celebration."

Luna didn't turn, avoiding to see his disgusting astral form. "Who are you to tell me anything?"

"I tell you as someone who thought being the Knight of the Aqualord was everything."

"And Lina cured you?"

"Nah, Nameless did. Lina helped me in other ways. She—" She tasted his miasma far more sharply than before, even at this distance. That was new and she didn't like it.

"Sobstory at midday o'dial," Luna said as she walked out. "Spare me. I'm going to bed."

She left behind the veils and the people, but no matter how much she tried to shake off that new sensation of the world around her, it remained.

**· · · · · · ·**

Luna walked across a range of stupidly idyllic mountains with too muchEdelweiß and white cotton candy draped around the peeks. Pretty as it was, the paths were difficult to travel. Little loose rocks everywhere and only solid wall on one side and a canyon on the other made her feet slip more than once.

Every path she had walked on so far had collapsed under her, no matter how stable it had looked. Luna had trekked through mountains during her knightly training, but never had she encountered such a thing. The constant falling made it really difficult to keep hidden from the dragons. It was like she weighed five tons.

"Ceiphiedammit!" she called as she slipped off a ridge once again. The curse echoed through the entire mountain.

Wait a second.

She never said Ceiphiedammit because ... well, that would be like asking herself to damn someone. So redundant.

She also wasn't five tons and she had no reason to hide from dragons when she could just kick their ass.

There was only one explanation for this.

Dreams.

And not her own to boot.

Orun had been right after all, because unless that snake had any hallucinogenic effects, she was in someone's dreamscape. This wasn't exactly finding Lina, but it was a world more precise than tuning into Divinity Network. And this happened just after a short hour of sacred concentration?

Ooh, she could do interesting things with this.

Luna was sure this was Filia's dreamscape. The worldly mechanics were as observed someone who had a much harder time traveling mountain ranges by foot due to weight and someone for whom avoiding dragons was a law of life. That, and the part of legions golden dragons around about their need to find and kill the ancient dragon. Huh, those hadn't seemed out of place before.

"Woah, Filia. You're coping so well with that whole genocidal dragons thing," Luna muttered as she climbed back on the ridge.

She wasn't usually aware when she was dreaming, but now she was she noticed a lot of things out of place. Idealized mountains aside, she was wearing the outfit of Liliane's Ceiphied Knights. Or rather, the way Filia saw it. Luna knew the outfit to be a bit coarse and heavy, but in this dream the dark cape billowed as if it weighed nothing and the golden shoulder pads were more gold than coppery.

She whistled and from then on, Spot had been at her side the entire time.

Well, a version of Spot. Luna broke out laughing when the dreamscape granted her an boar sized neon green poodle. Luna had once complained to Filia about keeping him outside cause he got green fur all over the place and was huge, but she had never said _what_ he was.

"Spot, find Filia."

Poodle Spot wagged his tail as he happily skipped down a mountain path that hadn't been there before.

Sometimes, she saw a figment of Xelloss assault a flock of dragons and torture them to death, and at point she passed what probably had been the temple of the ancient dragons. It was littered with corpses of both gold scales and dark feathers.

Spot led her away from these nightmarish figments and down the ground lands, a trek that would have taken weeks if this had been a real landscape. Luna wondered whether Filia's conscious was aware of every facet of this dreamscape, because her own dreams were no landscapes she could observe from an omniscient point of view. Luna's dreaming was aware in only one location and didn't get high definition, but from the looks of it it was different for a prophet.

Filia's refuge was a quaint little brick town that had entirely too much tea, ceramic and icecream shops for such a small place. Everything else was gardens, parks and cottages, its inhabitants humans and beast folk. Luna walked a little slower when she saw this, wondering whether or not she'd have to do something about the Spot figment, which was gradually changing into the hybrid she knew him to be. Filia would be annoying about him if she found out.

As soon as the Spot figment had pointed out an inn, she killed the neon green abomination and buried it in a nearby garden. Using dream logic to make the blood vanish, she stepped into the inn and suddenly was a dancer. Going with the flow, she performed the same dance she had learned earlier. It carried none of the enchantment, though, as the sensation of flow dance started by Orun was not known to Filia.

The music ended and the people in the inn applauded her performance, and Luna bowed.

"That was beautiful, Luna."

That was definitely Filia's voice, though the lack of miss stood out. Luna looked across the crowd to find her.

If she hadn't known Filia, she wouldn't have guessed she was a dragon. Blending in perfectly amidst the humans was a Filia almost like the one from real life, but not quite. The elven ears were gone and instead of her priest outfit, she wore a dirndl in greens and pinks. With her she carried a basket full of jars filled with marmalade. She was in the middle of selling these.

Jumping off the stage, she hopped across a few tables to join her.

"Hey Filia. You might wanna check your soul gate. I'm a total newbie at soul surfing yet I just fell into your head without even meaning to."

Delighted, Filia hooked her fingers together. "You did it! You're using your divine powers to tape into the flow like the gods do! Luna, you're getting in touch with the spiritual side of yourself!"

"Huh ... I guess I am," she said as she stole a finger of marmalade. It tasted of cherry, far more purely than in real life. "Hmm, I can taste food in this dream. I never can in mine. Neat."

"Such details come with being an experienced lucid dreamer," Filia said while pouring Luna a cup of wine. It was best not to question where the cup came from, especially since the inn had been replaced by a corn field, wide below the open blue sky. There were dragons in the distance, but they didn't seem to notice them and Filia no longer was worried. Her family was there too, sitting around a picnic sheet on flattened corn. Luna sat down.

"So, where did you disappear to, Luna? I hope Liliane didn't change her mind about sealing you. " Filia started preparing sandwiches, aided by the figments around her. They handed her things as she requested, but she didn't really interact with them.

"Oh, yeah, that. I'm not in Zephyria anymore. Was gonna drop you a note, but some stupid devil knocked over the closet with my crystal ball and it didn't survive. We gave it a beautiful eulogy, you should have been there."

Filia nodded grimly. "Don't you just hate it when they just get into your house and make a problem?"

"Absolutely. Let me tell you, it's the queen bitch—"

"Luna, please don't use that language in my dreams! Besides, Liliane is not that bad. Sure, she may be a little close minded, but ... " Filia's eyes went wide. "You weren't talking in metaphor."

Luna looked over her shoulder to see a horse sized beige wolf with swan wings.

"Huh, interesting. That's got some details right. Am I leaking memories?"

"You are putting forth knowledge, as you are the god here ... " Filia said absently. A deep frown appeared. "Xelloss said he had no reason to believe you were involved. I thought he couldn't lie, but if the beastmaster sought you out, then he must have lied or he didn't know. I don't know what's more unlikely."

Luna tilted her head, trying to get an idea on what bothered Filia so much about this. What did it matter when devils were likely to backstab someone one way or another?

It took Luna a few seconds to realize that she had just said that out loud. Her first clue was the corn flattened by sheer divine force from the skies and the echo of a booming version of her own voice. She could have sworn there was a backdrop of angel choirs too.

Dammit. Her subconscious had just as much to say in this dream as her conscious self.

Curtsy of a disturbed Filia, the surrounding melted away into a temple hall so large it could fit a whole swarm of dragons. A red shadow fell from behind Luna. She looked over her shoulder

There was the crumbled statue of Vrabazard, shining red as it burned. The picnic sheet was still there, and so was Filia's troupe, all fixated on this statue. Wolf Zelas had sat down and was scratching herself behind her ear while a new Poodle Spot took a leak against the statue.

So this was what Filia thought of her now?

"Oh no, no you don't. You are not associating me with those lazy space blobs, Filia Ul Copt!"

"I can't help it, you're using godly power to be here!"

Luna placed her fingers against her forehead in thought, and by walked a Lina figment in the same thoughtful pose. Luna dropped her hand at once, disliking the association.

"Okay, let's clear this all up. Liliane is not involved. Zelas is in league with Rangort, they're using me as a proxy to find Lina cause supposedly, it won't be suspicious to Scabbs and Puffy if I want to find her, but if Rangort does it they'll want to know what's going on. Xelloss may or may not be in the dark for similar reason, and you shouldn't fret about that."

"But what do _we _really know?" Filia asked.

What were the devils plotting, what were the dragons plotting?

Was Luna really the evil sister out of the equation?

That last one, and only that last one thundered from the sky too :

"IT IS A RIDICULOUS MATTER! MY ESTEEMED SELF IS NOT THE ONE WHO NEARLY DESTROYED THE WORLD JUST SO MY BOYFRIEND COULD LIVE A FEW MORE YEARS! HOW CAN ORUN CAST MYSELF AS THE EVIL SISTER? CLEARLY IT IS LINA."

A confused Filia looked around at a vague double Orun and a cleaner version of the village. "Luna, what am I missing?"

"Eh, nothing. We should be talking about more important things. Orun didn't even really cast me like that anyway."

"BUT IT FELT LIKE IT!" Luna Above declared.

"Eh ... I don't believe you're the evil sister. You are not even twins. But ..." Filia's dreamscape turned very dark. "Miss Lina is very scared of you ... after I've seen her in face of Dark Star and Ruby Eye, I wonder why? What did you do to her?"

"Eh, don't overthink it. You know how things are a lot more scary when you're young? Besides, she had it coming. She sold recorded Visions of my under the shower to a bunch of boys."

"She did? That is vile!"

"THY HAST NO IDEA!" Luna Above declared. Ominous clouds started to pack together. "BEHOLD AND LET ME ILLUSTRATE HOW PEOPLE LOOKED AT MY ESTEEMED SELF FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR."

"No!" Luna cried, only to be ignored by herself as the scene changed to the village full of snickering people ... and what Luna saw and tasted on the astral plane, knowledge now up for grabs. Under the surface of reverence and politeness, the people in the village saw a broken pedestal. She wasn't the good girl anymore, because many didn't believe Lina had been able to sneak up on her, sharp sensed as she was said to be. She must have done it on intention.

Filia covered her mouth with a hand, and Luna hated that she could neither see her astral side nor taste her miasma.

"ARE THOU LAUGHING AT ME?"

Filia shook her head. "No, I'm just learning a lot of details I have no business knowing. I understand now why you're afraid of what the gods might take along when their power reaches to us. If this is what you can't help but perceive, I can't even imagine what they can do when inside our minds."

"OH. OKAY. BECAUSE THE LAUGHING MAKES MY ESTEEMED SELF FEEL BAD."

Desperately Luna clasped her own mouth shut with both hands. There was no living with herself after this.

"I AM ALSO REALLY AWARE THAT IT'S RIDICULOUS HOW WORKED UP I CAN GET OVER LITTLE THINGS LIKE STUFF THROWN ON THE FLOOR," the merciless Luna Above continued as the clouds broke to let through a lone ray of sunlight. "BUT REALLY, FATHER NEEDS TO LEARN TO PUT THE TOILET SEAT DOWN."

Much to Luna's horror, she found herself hiding behind a rock. In the real world she would have done no such thing, but here the rock just conveniently was there all of the sudden.

Filia gave a little laugh and without miasma to taste, Luna had no idea whether it was mocking, uncomfortable or something else.

"CEASE THY LAUGHTER, THY INSOLENT SILLY PERSON!"

"I mean cut it out," Luna grumbled from behind her rock.

Filia stepped in view and sat down at her side, lips pressed into a thin line. "I'm afraid your subconscious has hijacked my five year old self's fantasy of how Ceiphied would act."

"That's all you're laughing about?"

Filia made a dismissive handwave. "You'll have to accept that if you walk in the shadow of Lina Inverse, your dignity shall burn on her altar."

"Which translates to the sacrifice of your cool factor if you ever follow Lina," said a Xelloss figment who popped up on Luna's other. "And an absolute accent on how humanly weak you truly are."

Luna flicked a flare of white fire at him at the same time Filia hurled her mace. In this reality, they could actually hit. But, Xelloss just kept listing definitions of how pathetic everyone was.

"THIS IS GOING TO BE A PROBLEM," Luna realized _and_ involuntarily declared as Luna Above, this time with a far louder angelic choir.

"Oh, don't worry, Luna. I won't tell anyone about anything embarrassing that happens in here," Filia said mechanically, staring past her with wide eyes for a second or three. Then she turned away.

Luna looked past figment Xelloss to see that figment Zelas had turned into her aristocratic human form, lovely as in reality except her behavior was ... off. She winked at Luna as she lay on a four poster bed.

"WHY YES, MY HOLY SELF DOES THINK SHE IS ATTRACTIVE," Luna Above said with solemn repose.

Luna grabbed Filia by the cloak. "Filia, dream exit. Now."

"I'm afraid that's out of my control. I have a window open, but you are far stronger than I am. If you're still here, you do not really want to leave."

"How can I not want to leave when this is the second most humiliating thing in my life, and I can't even make anyone pay?"

"Only this much? It's no regular occurrence living with Lina?" Filia asked, putting a finger to her chin. "Zelgadis told me that it took mere days before his mysterious heartless swordsman imago was ruined by Lina. As her sister, I would have thought she would have affected you long ago."

"Lina used to run from me. This is the first time I'm involved with her in a way beyond scary big sis."

"BEYOND EVIL SISTER MY ESTEEMED SELF MEANS."

"You shut up!" Luna snapped at the sky, which responded by shining a little more sun.

Filia put her on Luna's shoulder. "Luna, didn't you just tell me not to fret? While we're here, how about we have some fun?"

With a snap of her fingers, there was a figment of Liliane. "We can hit everyone we want to hit and I'm sure you'll soon learn to control your subconscious. It just needs a little practice."

"THIS COULD ACTUALLY BE USEFUL FOR SOMETHING I WANT TO DO."

Filia looked positively giddy (as opposed to negatively giddy, which Luna did when she rectified people).

"Okay, you learn me to control dreams, and I'll teach you a bit about astral locks on souls. Deal?"

"Deal."

**· · · · · · ·**

When Luna woke in the late morning, she was greeted with the sight of sun on the straw ceiling and Ceiphied's ribcage on the astral plane. With a groan, she pushed up and rubbed her eyes. For all of the dream, she had not seen the corpse or even realized it had been gone.

Now, the dimorphism of her soul and Ceiphied's power was stronger than ever. Ironically, those two facets had become more one than ever. It made so little sense that her human mind reeled at her astral body when it was more and more ... right. Closing her eyes did not make the corpse vanish, but she felt the flow further around herself and could feel the physical world through it a sharper. Grains of sand on the floor, all the detail of Spot's fur and the soft breeze in the curtains. It was worse than after yesterday's dance.

She breathed out and opened her eyes again, but made no move to get out of bed. She needed to think.

In the dreams, everything didn't just look different, it felt different. A sunset was beautiful when seen through the mind of one who cared for such things, even if Luna herself did not. How easy it was to take on the mask of another person, once inside, once a personality could be lived through on the same principles as her own mind. Just different triggers. Filia's dreams always had beautiful skies and Luna remembered them as such even as consciously she had not paid attention to it.

This variant of sharing energy wasn't remotely as disturbing as what had happened earlier during the dance, perhaps because it didn't change who and how she was. Oh, it exposed her alright, but she didn't lose herself into thinking it was alright to be something she wasn't. She couldn't pin point what the dance had made her be, but she didn't like it. In contrast, the dream experience was just a mask to wear.

The price? Having her embarrassing secrets not merely exposed, but blared from the sky. Not that it mattered much, Filia had greater shames and deeper fears, she didn't make a big fuss out of Luna's secrets.

Luna felt like making a fuss about Filia's secrets though.

Filia's fears were all over her mental landscape, lurking close outside the nests she created for herself. She went through moods as if death chased her and her dreamscape changed accordingly. One could step from a boiler room where she hid from a mob to a Sailoon dancing hall, and it would make sense in Filia's emotional landscape. Melancholy and guilt mixed poorly with the fascination she had with cultures or her shallow indignation about small offenses. Luna couldn't understand how Filia lived with herself being such a contrast in five directions.

Val was worst. Whenever the figment of Val was around, he was a cute kid within her line of sight but a devil the moment she turned her back. Every time this happened she would look over her shoulder, worried, only to find a child. There would be a tense smile and a hand inviting him to step ahead. He'd smile back and take her hand as if he had never looked at her with cold hatred. This too was something Luna only became aware of now, because within the dream it had not been important to think about.

Luna knew Filia had issues, but hadn't understood. Knowing and understanding were very different things, Liliane had said this so often Luna had gagged on the words. Ha, truth after all.

Dammit. Being so familiar with someone meant an awful lot of responsibility. Not fun to think about.

The seed of doubt sprouted. Did she really want to keep doing it, exposing herself like this? The dreamscape was more benign as an extension of her holy power, but not entirely safe either. If Luna could get into Filia's mind, then so could the gods. She didn't want to meet them anymore, not that she cared to before.

But exactly because she knew so little, it would be useful to learn the full extent of what holy powers and souls could do. Filia sure as hell could use it, and understanding it would give Luna a defense if it ever were to be done to her by gods or devils.

And it most certainly _did_ matter that Xelloss did not seem to know what Zelas was up to.

Speaking of that, it only stood out after she started thinking about dream logic and what was questioned, but Lyos and Orun had not asked anything about her search, not why or whether she had exhausted all other options.

Whatever was going on, it had the signs of a legends and secret games. Luna needed to know more if she wanted to walk out of it. Plus, even if she was weak before the players this time, it wouldn't do to act like she was. Her little sister, smither of gods and devils, feared her and Luna was damn well expand that reputation from the physical realm to the spiritual one.

And Luna Above whispered that perhaps she was going to dream again because she really liked seeing the world without an overlay of corpse.

**· · · · · · ·**

**Author's Note :** _Lyos, Nameless and Orun are from the Knight of the Aqualord manga. The events of the manga are slightly adapted to fit onto anime canon, so Lina didn't go there right after the breaking of the barrier, but several years later._


	9. Filia's Blasphemy

**· · · · · · ·**

In full dragon form, Filia rolled down the Everlasting Leaf Pile. She reached the bottom before Luna did, if only by a mile or two. With a plop, she spread over the giant cranberry the pile was on. She was early, but at the cost of her grace. Luna somehow managed to plummet in an elegant yet nonchalant way. Off course, Luna just had to be avant garde about falling. Filia consoled herself by understanding Luna had less limbs to flail around with.

"Filia," Luna said while somersaulting the final stretch, "Didn't we have a topic tonight?"

"I think so, but we got derailed while I complained about Xelloss's taste in design," Filia said, scratching her snout as she looked up to the tea-filled sky (technically her dragon arms were too tiny for this but one doesn't care about that in dreams).

"How did we get from there to Cranberry Island?"

"We asked that in the pink pine forest already and then dreamed about cotton candy flavors and got—"

Luna held up her hands quickly. "No derailing anymore. Soul fences. Right?"

"I do recall you saying such, but not why?"

"Wanna control dream flow better."

"I AM IN THE BELIEF THAT KNOWING HOW SOUL BARRIERS WORK ALLOW ME A DEFENSE AGAINST MY SACRED SIBLINGS TAMPERING WITH MY MENTAL FACULTIES," Luna Above declared.

"Mental faculties, really?" Luna said. "If this is your toddler self's idea of Ceiphied, can we like reset it to something less embarrassing? I don't like that stupid!"

Filia stood up and shook the last leafs out of her mane, which fluffed up a little. "Luna, we're getting off topic ...ehm, Luna?"

Luna was pulling out a gigantic version of a Jillas cannon and aimed at the sky. With a thunderous crash, the cannonball hurled through the clouds.

"OH WOES!" Luna above thundered. Down fell a giant red plush dragon, burning in white flares.

"Luna, don't shoot at your own subconscious!"

"I'm just shooting at the figment you made," she said as she tossed away the cannon. "It's got no holy power of mine in it."

"Oh, is that so? I never ... no, no, off topic again."

"Right. Okay. Soul holes. That was it."

"Not fences?"

"Whatever. So, something is pulling me back whenever I think about wanting to go back, so I'm just going to do that now. Follow me."

"Ready whenever you are." Filia pulled out a needle and pinpricked the cranberry. It exploded.

After a few moments without gravity, they fell into a sea. Luna crossed her arms and let the water engulf her, apparently fine with the sensation. Filia herself had to fight off the idea she needed to drown, and on a deeper level the idea she was doing something forbidden.

Light became dim as they sunk deeper.. Just as Filia was getting worried over why nothing else happened, Luna swam over to sit on her shoulders.

"TO THE LEFT AND TWIRLS A LITTLE SIDEWAYS INTO THE GRAY STREAM," said Luna Above the giant plush, who was spontaneously floating alongside them all along. Filia obeyed, while Luna adopted the tactic of ignoring the overly cute thing.

Without a clear idea how they had gotten there, but the knowledge they were at the end of the path, Filia in elven form and Luna in her armor stood on the bottom of the sea, which was also a fog filled taiga. There were as much rocks as there were trees for as far as Filia could see, sometimes the trees were rocks and stones formed out of tree.

"Thrilling," Luna said.

Plush Luna Above had landed behind them and was blocked a lot of the view that direction, but Filia noticed something just above it and beyond the fog.

With a few quick strides, she walked around the plush. Luna followed her as the giant plush clumsily turned.

"Meh, hedges," Luna said.

To the east and west, to above and deep into earth was a network of dark gold metalwork, forged like vines. The shapes of the vines were erratic, sometimes curling elegantly and other times straight and unrelenting to flow. Only if one saw the whole did it fall into rhythm. It felt like it went on beyond the darkness of the sky, encasing all of herself.

Gingerly, Filia laid her hands on the nearest curl. It was like touching the essence of herself and yet she was the farthest away from who she was. A cold awareness settled over her as everything trivial was pushed away. Not significant anymore. Purely being, undiluted, simply a need to exist, yet not herself. Filia consisted of many small details.

She pulled back hand, clenching it close to her chest.

"Got the vibes, eh? _That's _what the gods exist like, reveling into that pure, simplistic existence. Disgusting idiots, think they're better because of that," Luna said. She spit on the ground. "Gotta admit though there were times I was tempted to exist like that ... Hey ... Filia?"

Filia was aware she was being spoken to, but she couldn't move. Here on the border of one for of being and another, it wasn't so bad. A little of both worlds, a little of —

A sharp pain shot through her. It was shapeless and had no form or location anywhere in her body, yet it was so real Filia cried out. The world, however imaginary, drew back into focus. Damp earth was below her fingers, and the mixed sensation of holy wind and waves all around her.

Luna held out a hand. Shaking a little, Filia took it and stood. "Did you ... do that?"

"Yep. Pain's the quickest way to snap people out of that kinda trance. C'mon, show me the god's entrance."

"We're right before it," she said.

At her will, the network melted into a spiral that formed a ring at its center. Expending around this ring was a second circle, and finally two crossed almond shapes melted together to encase the rings at their center. Filia didn't know what to think of this four pointed sigil. Hexagrams were of the gods, pentagrams of the devils. What was this?

Luna tilted her head a little and said, "Huh. I get it now. I hitchhike here on Valwin's flow to Ragradia's power. Gotta say, this flow stuff is useful after all."

"Luna, this is a four pointed symbol! Do you realize what that implies? There may yet be other sigils we have no idea about!"

"Yeah, eh, fascinating."

"BORING," Luna Above declared. Luna set the plush on fire with a snap of her fingers.

"Skipping the metaphysical crap, Filia. What matter is that that shit's carved into your soul, but it doesn't ... your souls doesn't feel damaged. Weird."

"Ah, so you have experience with soul damage? What other people had it?" Filia had never learned what Luna meant when she wanted to check up on her being tampered with, this was as good a time as any to ask.

Luna stretched her arm, knacked it back with a finger pointed at herself and grinned. "At least Ceiphied's a quiet roommate. As silent as the grave."

"Oh, Luna ..." Filia reached out, intending to place a hand on her shoulder, but Luna brushed her hand away.

"Don't worry about it. I'm not broken, Ceiphied's power fills the bits and pieces missing. Let's focus on this nice little hole here. From what I can tell, this sieve allowed Vrabazard to push in tidbits of energy. I'd bet you that in priest class they said you had to learn to accept the messages of the gods, but what you really did was carve out this hole. The most extreme thing you can let happen is them taking over your body, right?"

Filia nodded. "That did bother me at the beginning, but I was taught it was a great honor. I don't think so now, but—"

"No woeful nostalgia. You got any spells that deal with souls?"

"Absolutely, that would be Holy Rezast."

"Cast it," Luna said.

"Huh? I'm not even awake!"

"So what? I'll make it work, I do wordless magic all the time." Luna took a few steps away, turned around and pointed at the ground. "There."

Well, if Luna said so, she was probably right. Filia folded her hands and concentrated, but kept her eyes open.

"Life Law Circle," Filia heard herself whisper. It wasn't the name of the spell, but it was its true meaning.

A thin red circle appeared between her and where Luna stood. Instead of the vague white flow upwards, however, the forces around Luna pulled towards it. Not only Luna's power, but also the wind and water magic were drawn in through the sigil.

Luna poked the circle with her boot. Filia would have imagined a more interesting way to probe magic, but it just wasn't Luna's style.

"What do you think your Holy Rezast does?"

Filia sensed there was going to be a nasty revelation, but she spoke without hesitation. "It allows ghosts to move to the afterlife, and if cast on the living gives them new energy."

"Let me tell you something fun. When the devil barrier was raised, everyone within lost their holy magic but not the need for it. Someone reverse engineered Holy Rezast and came up with Megiddo Flare. It does the exorcism thing, but it also gives the living a feeling of serenity, so they say. Let's say Megiddo Flare isn't designed well enough to only tune into ghostly emotions because it's a shabby imitation. Those living, they don't get serenity, it takes away rage and frustration. What does that tell you about the fine tuned version, Holy Rezast? Maybe that new energy is just negative facet taken away? It's the same trick as coffee, except by removing all negativity people can draw energy from the flow better."

After two times of learning devastating truths about the gods, Filia wasn't fazed all that much anymore. Seven years ago, it was her religion's temple ordering genocide, three years ago it was learning that heaven did not exist. All she did was sigh. Holy Rezast tampered with the minds and hearts of souls, dead or alive. It wasn't much of a surprise anymore, given the amorality that existed around the deities.

Luna smiled. Not smirked, an actual smile.

"Good, no angsty stuff this time," she said. With two strides, she was before Filia and pulled her into the circle. "Now, let's reverse engineer this so we can use it on gods, or maybe just for more specific stuff that snipping away negative feelings."

"What?"

"I told you, the best defense is to understand how the enemy's weapon works. I've got a grip of holy magic, you know technique. We can sort this out."

"How would you try that?"

"We draw in a little of Valwin's extended mind, the stuff I hitchhike one. It's out there, the only reason he's not questioning what I do in here is cause he's without passion. We can exploit that."

Filia stared at Luna, stunned. "You were always so suspicious of the gods messing with us. How can you try to do the same to them?"

"Filia," Luna said with a sudden iciness to her voice. "We're just going a few steps ahead. Using that soul gate, we can pinch off a little of Valwin's mind power and—"

"No. I can't. Not like this, it's not necessary, it's not right."

"Why not? Your kid got mindwiped, didn't he? Don't tell me you'd rather have him as before."

"That's different!" she snapped.

Luna's lips became a thin line and Filia sensed something very wrong about the atmosphere. Filia got an inkling of her infamous terror, but only that little. After all, Filia was (in)famous (amongst certain circles) for being fearless.

Filia crossed her arms and glared back. "_No_."

"You're just going to pass up this chance? Right here and now, we could do something that had never been done before!" She sounded unusually desperate.

"We don't know anything," Filia said. "So, no. I'm willing to cross lines but only for good reasons."

"It's not a good reason that I might need it?"

"The gods haven't threatened you, and Lyos and Lina proved that possession by devils can be beaten. I'm sure you're stronger than Lyos, so this little exercise would only be a hobby. No."

"Fine. Be that way." Luna kicked the edge of the circle into pieces, and the spell's power dissolved.

Filia left her there and didn't look back, but the singed Ceiphied plush followed her through the rest of her dream.

**· · · · · · ·**

As questionable as her exploits in dreamscapes were, real life had worse scenarios. Thoughts of what could have been cropped up in unguarded moments.

Bazard Ul Copt had envisioned a spiritual life for his daughter, spoonfeeding her religious creed before she could even fly. She'd been determined to become a member of the holy orders herself, as all her siblings had done either as soldiers or priests. When she alone became a priest of the _first _holy order, it had been the pride of his life. She would follow in his wingstrokes by educating the weak of faith, returning to the right path those poor souls led astray by devils and their inherent sin. In the face of evil, she was to stand strong and courageous even if it meant painful death. Her last breath would carry the words of holiness and she would never bow to the darkness. There were whispered tales of horror, of priests tormented to death by the five retainers and their courts. Those fearful manipulations were amongst the evil she would be protecting others from, that they may find strength before the trials of the devils.

If nothing else, she was doing the protection against evil thing. By all that lived, that pot was going to get _out _of Xelloss's hands.

It was her afternoon off, for crying out loud. Gravos had came running into the house with the dire news that Xelloss had invaded the elvish kitchens. Lina had told her dreadful takes of Xelloss's cooking, which smelled foul beyond reason and involved living ingredients, but the most horrible was that apparently he knew his dishes could kill golden dragons. She left her tea and ran.

Sure enough, Xelloss had been about to feed an unholy brew to some poor elves who were trying to politely refuse with dumb excuses. Filia preferred a more hands-on approach of resisting evil, hands filled with lord Mace. She teleported right behind Xelloss and took a swing.

Off course she didn't hit, she never did. Before she realized, he stood behind her, grabbed her tail and pulled it up into the momentum of her movement. She smacked face first into the floor, right into the pot he'd dropped there.

The first holy order of Vrabazard had been so wrong. If they'd had the smallest idea about Xelloss beyond the Dragon Slayer, there would have been lessons about self control in the face of insufferable smugness. Instead, she got to thank seven years of running a business and intense trauma at her clan's actions for what composure she retained. Slowly she stood up, careful not to slip on the vile brew. It stank of sewer, as befitting to someone like him.

"Miss Filia, if you were so desperate for first taste, you could have just asked."

Now she saw him up front, wearing that pink apron (it was kinda cute, but not on him), she added laughter to the things to be controlled. She just puffed up her cheeks, raised her nose and stomped back to the door. Behind here, there was a disappointed huff. Any second now ...

He phased between her and the exit.

"Now now, you've ruined the meal of these poor elves. Don't you think you should make it up to them?"

She set her hands on her hips, letting rage build up for tempting moments before turning her thoughts to that happy time she was awarded first prize from the ceramics guild. Her mind a little clearer, she saw the trap. If she got angry he would shame her into agreeing to cook something better, and who knew what would happen then. What the other people involved wanted was supposed to be forgotten.

She spun around to the elves. "Are you hungry at all?"

"Eh ... n-no, m'lady," one of them stammered as he climbed to shaky feet.

"That settles it then. There seems to be smoke coming from the supply room, better go put that out," she said happily. For bonus, she raised a finger in Xelloss style. He hated that. "Use sand spells, so the flour bags will not get soaked."

"Off course!" The fearful elves couldn't leave quick enough.

"Spoilsport," Xelloss muttered. He was looked disappointed, which gave Filia something to be genuinely happy about.

"It's my pleasure!" she declared with a formal flair and a curtsy. Slick, sticky hair fell around her face and it felt so irritating, but she pushed that aside to play the role of miss shopkeeper. Always keep smiling, no matter how wrong the customer is.

"I wonder, did you meet someone else to vex?"

So typical of him to pretend she was the one looking to vex others.

"I don't feed on negative emotions, trash," she said, standing straight and picking the next happy thing off her mental checklist. "In fact, I'm very much about happiness lately. These lovely snowy mountains have been reminding me of one of my favorite songs. Cotton flowers in the wind, mother Hulda has the winter pinned ... "

She couldn't proclaim how wonderful life was with the same vigor as Amelia, but indirect measures seemed to work just as well. Xelloss said nothing. Perhaps it was too much to hope, but maybe he'd do something dorky to save face.

Off course, even if she refused to play she couldn't really win.

"Trying to change the game, miss Filia?" That haughty tone had replaced the mock politeness.

"Just the menu," she said as coldly as she could, even though the urge to pull out her mace was stirring again. "But not too much. You have your uses, the kind the gods don't cover."

"Hmm."

As she shoved past him, he ran his hand through her hair. The stinking stew fell out in dry clumps before burning up in blue fire. She stopped, but he'd vanished before she could ask what that had been about.

For all the ways she was used to Xelloss, it unsettled her if he did something _benign_. Lina had told her he'd been like that as long as they'd known him as a devil, someone not easily classified as typically evil devil.

In the end, what was she to make of him? He was wicked, but he could be worse. Despite the potential, Xelloss didn't mock people for what they couldn't help, or did anything that would cause lasting damage to a person's body (their purses, on the other hand ...). Sometimes, he returned lost property just because he could and saved lives because why not? All that just barely fit in the bag of Xelloss' stubbornly sticking to his narrow definition of polite.

His very narrow definition of polite. As she learned a few hours later, Xelloss had tricked the elves into ruining all the supplies in the next installment of Unauthorized Kitchen Adventures.

**· · · · · · ·**

A day went by in its new hectic pattern : tend to her family and put a sleep deprived Val to bed (she would never have imagined that only a maze and infinite knowledge could have kept him entertained night after night), check up on the next batch of vessels and endure Xelloss.

Sometimes this pattern meant she also had to dig Jillas and Memphis out of a mountain because their training caused an avalanche and off course Xelloss always invented new pranks. Fortunately, today his kitchen stunt was the only prank, and Jillas and Memphis managed to not wreck anything. As evening came, the foul mood she'd woken with was considerably better, which was just as well since Milgazia had off.

There was a network of caves behind the waterfall where dragons rarely came, as it involved getting wet with near freezing water. Filia worked around this by placing an enchanted item inside so she could teleport in even if it was out of visual range. Getting it in had made her very wet, but this was a one time situation.

In exchange for Filia's silence about Milgazia's suspected practice of the dark arts, Milgazia had not made big deal about her borrowing of the crystal ball. She might have accidentally demanded he tutor her too, simply by dropping insinuation it might help damage control when Xelloss went too far.

To think, seven years ago, she would have been revolted at the very idea she was blackmailing a dragon elder. Deep dark recesses of her mind ... oh, screw it. It was wide in the open that she enjoyed a little bit of power. Not that this was outside of her principles, off course. Learning dark magic might be very useful for defense and Zelas Phalanx was exactly her thing. This spell produced a variety of thin threads of light that had to be controlled by the mind, and Filia just happened to be a master of cat's cradle.

Milgazia never was much of an expressionist, but certain things he said had given her the idea he found her method of training with the spell to be odd. When he finally opened his mouth and hesitated, she expected to hear a reprimand. She steeled herself not to care.

"I heard you had a conflict with that gofer devil earlier this morning."

That was something she _should_ have been expecting. She started a more complex pattern of threads with the spell, giving herself an excuse not to look him in the eyes.

"Oh, that? Don't worry about it, it's just another Tuesday," she said quickly.

"Such casual interaction with a devil is a warning sign. Word goes round he has reduced you to his plaything and fooled you into forgetting what he is. You are giving him a chance to undermine your faith."

"I know what he is!" she said evenly, but she couldn't keep her eyebrow from twitching. "Do you think I chose this? I lost my dignity, sure, but I didn't lose my awareness of what he is. He made that crystal clear and wouldn't have it any other way."

"That may be what he wants you to feel like. If you are secure in your understanding yet still allow him close, it is his chance to undermine destabilize your faith."

"What do you want me to do? Be the perfect little priestess who rises above dark taunts? I can't afford such ideals! If I must play with a devil to keep my family safe, I will. Besides, those elves didn't see the finish. I totally got him to shut up."

"Why exactly is your family in danger then?"

Filia bit her lip and kept her ancient secret, choosing a lie in its stead. "Ever since the Dark Star incident, I am on the wanted list of the devils."

"What if he too is after you, but not to kill you? Spiritual corruption is an even greater danger, for you may not pass into heaven upon death if you fall."

Filia clenched her fist, and the all the threads of light dissipated. "Spiritual corruption? I suppose miss Lina never told you the details of her battle against the Hellmaster."

"We did not learn of those events until we spoke to dragon clans who still had a god to guide their clairvoyance. She herself kept the event from me. What are you referring to?"

For long seconds, Filia considered telling him all. Lina had never defeated Gaav nor Fibrizo, yet the dragon clans believed so. They would know even less of Fibrizo's scheme. All those innocent villagers drawn into the sadistic setting only meant this : there was no righteous heaven guarded by the gods.

"Never mind, lord Milgazia. About Xelloss, he never tried corrupting me," she said. She knew a certain holy person with corruptive tendencies though. "And don't worry about my spiritual integrity. There is a difference between tolerating someone as a person, and tolerating their actions. Until he crosses the line of endangering my family, I'm tolerating _him_ but _not_ the actions that he might commit at other times."

"There's something wrong about how you exclude yourself from that line," Milgazia said. "I believe you're just giving yourself the illusion of control with those words. Do you still pray? The gods—"

"No!" She jabbed a finger at Milgazia. "I won't pray and I don't need your prayers either, nor your advice. I know exactly how weak I am. That _thing_ is always stronger. I can't make_ it _leave. _It _entertains _it_self with me,_ it _has use for me, and_ it _has a good reason to kill me if that use runs out. I can't afford to either stop entertaining or to stop being of use to _it_. As much as I hate that I've become a theater for our mortal enemy, I won't be a theater for the gods as well."

Milgazia took a deep breath and for a moment she could have sworn he was upset, but nothing changed in his expression save a slight drop in his eyebrows.

"If you are not in need of disillusionment, then I fail to understand your behavior around him. Doesn't he frighten you?" His tone had the subtle condescension of a person who just realized they were speaking to one of the faithless.

"Well ... no. He's not likely to start randomly torturing me or anyone else. If you'd try to punch him in the face, at most he'll pull a humiliating prank on you. Wait, he'll probably do that sooner or later anyway."

"Let me rephrase that. How do you spiritually deal with having a mass murderer over the floor all the time? You _were_ priestess, after all."

It was hard to tell whether that was accusatory or worried, but in either case it was a question about her faith. For Milgazia, one who had lost his god but not his faith, it had to be difficult to understand someone who had no hope for a greater reward. Knowing this, she couldn't hold her tongue anymore.

"I deal with it in the same way as I deal with knowing that my own clan committed genocide on pacifists, on their brothers and sisters, and then made a morbid artwork out of the penetrated skinned skulls, desecrating their temple in the process. Comparatively, knowing Xelloss won a lot of battles against dragon legions during a war doesn't hold as much impact."

"So what Lina said is true."

"Yes," she said softly. "You did not believe her?"

"Since the Devil Barrier was raised, we've been cut off from the rest of the world. For the past seven years we have tried reestablishing connections to the rest of the world, but it hasn't been easy. Lina's word is only second hand."

"Let me testify a first hand account, as shared by visions of the ancient dragon spirits themselves. It is true, my clan murdered them out of hunger for power and a terrible pride. I saw the corpses pierced on crosses, they killed everyone. The difference between warfare and genocide is that the latter keeps the violence going even when it's no longer of strategic use. Xelloss doesn't kill when he doesn't have to, my people however did so.

You know, lord Milgazia, if they'd been right about Xelloss I would have joined those corpses on that day. Xelloss had taken me hostage, my Elder took this moment to let me know I wasn't worth saving. Entumas could have said right away he didn't have the blood magic required to give into the demands, but no. It was imperative I'd know how worthless I was. No apology, no regret, not a single kind word to me. He didn't even look me in the eyes, just a barked command to be silent when I questioned his lies. He had far more to say about how his genocide was justified. Even when the world was breaking apart as a result, he claimed he had not made a mistake.

_That_ was the man who dominated my life for six hundred years, more so than even my father. The man chosen to represent my god. I saw him and all of my religion for what he was that day and I turned my back on it. What little I could still believe in, whether it be heaven's grace or divine mercy had since been brought to ruin by the word of the Sage of Ragradia. Even if Xelloss cared to, there's no faith left for him to undermine."

Milgazia had turned his head down and for a long time, the drops of the waterfall were the only thing to be heard around her. Within, there was the beating of her heart. She was speaking against an Elder again, something that never became natural to her.

"How ... how do you know for certain that he wasn't just stoic out of force. I myself am not very expressive, it does not mean indifference. Especially in such a situation, where the world was at stake, he might have forced himself to be stoic." Doubt was creeping in his voice.

"That is the kind of thing I used to tell myself," Filia said, gentler now. "I mean no disrespect, but are we still talking about my associations with a certain piece of garbage, or has this become about you defending a title you happen to share, elder of the Kataart Mountains?"

"I can sympathize with your doubts, believe it or not. I've had them myself," he said with a sigh.

This caught her by surprise. "May I ask how?"

"Aqualord Ragradia died as the result of a long scheme that built around depriving him of the positive emotions that he needed to be strong, while building of the negative emotions for the devils to feed on. The very first stages were wars in the human kingdoms. If we had aided the weaker races and done the morally right thing, it would never have come so far. It is one some days I wonder why our god did not send us on our way? Had he not noticed, or not cared to notice?"

The river might have taken a break from gravity and flooded the cave, Filia would not have noticed for those seconds where realization dawned. It wasn't about his doubt or the careless of the gods, that was old news. It was that tiny little detail that Milgazia had implied as the most usual thing to be known. Ragradia hadn't foreseen that these events would lead to his death. In other words, gods couldn't foretell the future.

Her lips trembled and she embraced herself with her arms.

Dragon's blood will flow, the prophecy had said.

"They're chaos words," Lina had said.

Vrabazard's so called prophecy of destruction hadn't been a prophecy, but a plot. The gods must have simply learned from the past, then calculated and steered for an outcome to deal with the Dark Star incident. Oh, looks like the Lord of Nightmares likes Lina, let's throw her at the problem. No, no need to be detailed to the clan, Luna will sort out the misunderstandings. Part of this plot described the death of her clan. The completely_ pointless_ death of her clan.

Filia knew all too well how precise the directions of Vrabazard could be. _Go that way, go here, go there. _It would have been so easy to just tell his own people to go away from the temple. Valgaav wouldn't have come across them, they would never have visited the desecrated ancient temple.

She had always believed that Vrabazard had phrased the prophecy as he did because he foresaw their behavior, their defiance to letting the prophecy play out, and had simply included it at a warning because no matter what he'd say her Elder would interpret it through the lens of his arrogance, or something. But if it _wasn't _the fruit of testing out a variety of timelines for the best outcome, then it was pointless to to include that one line unless as temptation.

That one line had told her clan this : You'll die, do go ahead and be nervous now.

Vrabazard had not one but two dragon clans on his conscience. There was apathy and then there was cruelty.

"Filia Ul Copt, is something the matter?"

"It's nothing important. The gods are just ..." She couldn't finish the sentence, so she change course to something happier. "Anyway, don't worry about what I and Xelloss are up to. It'll probably be annoying, but it will be the same as the last seven years. Shall we resume training?"

"Yes," he said, and that was all for the evening.

**· · · · · · ·**

Luna visited her in the later hours of night, as usual, but they didn't really talk. This remained so for the next three days, much to Filia's regret. As harsh as Luna was, Filia did enjoy speaking to a more open variant of the woman. It felt less one sided.

On the morning of the fourth day, she woke too early as Val jumped on her bed.

"Mom, mom, wake up! Memphis is here, she says the elves are going to the human town to stock up! We're invited along!" He bounced up and down, flapping his wings. "Mom! Come on!"

Filia groaned as she sat up, rubbing her eyes. "Did Xelloss destroy all food deposits or something?"

"Yes!" Val chirped. Dead heavens, that was nothing to sound so happy about. Filia lost a little control of her weight and the bed collapsed on its feet with Val's next bounce.

The boy rolled forward, she pulled him in a hug.

"Mom, it's okay if I have to stay hidden here, but can you bring me some ice cream? And some candy?"

She ruffled his hair. "That's all you're excited about? Don't be silly, Xelloss is going along. Your job is to go along so he will have to stay close and muddle your astral form. Who knows where he might run off to otherwise! It would be downright evil to expose the poor villagers to him."

Truth be said, she _was _weary of taking Val along with a group of elves, but the idea of letting him run off alone within the Claire Bible space when Xelloss wasn't around to bail him out if there was trouble was equally uncomfortable. There had to be something else than just infinite wisdom, because he just didn't come back bored and never complained either. It had taken so much complaining before he'd accepted he had to live in human form ...

It took a few hours of flight to reach the town and the company of twelve dragons. Normally the elves got their living from the forest, but with such a massive loss on the doorstep of winter, extreme measures were required.

Tss, extreme. The elves had such disdain for humans you'd think they'd been asked to spend the day with Xelloss! She suspected she was invited along as a diversion.

The town was more quiet than Filia had expected from one this size. According to Memphis, it had been abandoned once and was only slowly repopulating since the truce. It served as a middle point of the militarization process, some elves even had settled here.

The group split ways. The elves and their escort went to negotiate with trades, leaving Filia and her company to shop for themselves. Xelloss hadn't shown his face yet, so Filia, Elena, Palu, Molly and Val beelined for the shops.

She regretted bringing Elena, Palu and Molly along now, because the racism amongst humans seemed to have been intensified by the presence of the elves. If she leaned towards an interesting shop, she was told up front her company could not enter unless supervised, or enter at all. Gravos and Jillas had stayed behind exactly because they were the ones prone to break something, but the others deserved a lot more trust.

Just when she finally found a nice little ceramics store that allowed everyone in, Xelloss deemed it fit to join them. To Filia's horror, he had company.

Behind Xelloss, Milgazia stepped in. After him came Memphis, who shot Filia a desperate look and mouthed, "he kidnapped him".

"Ah, miss Filia, I see you've been overbuying already. Don't worry, I brought along some people to carry all those things," he said.

Elena and Filia exchanged a look and nodded. They held tighter onto their bags, but it was to no avail. Xelloss only needed to touch something to warp space around it. Before they could blink twice, their arms were empty and everything was stacked in Milgazia's arm.

The door fell shut only then and Filia noticed Val and Molly had gone missing.

"Palu, where did they go?"

The little vulpen pointed to the door. "Right when the big people came in. Val said that if that dragon was going to be here he wasn't. Molly followed him."

Filia frowned, Val hadn't told her anything to indicate why he'd be even more averse to goldens now.

"Oh my, how unfortunate," Xelloss said like it was _fortunate_. "So, miss Filia, are you here to check out the competition?"

"No, I'm just replacing my tea set," she snapped. Quickly, she grabbed the nice one she'd been looking at and went to the counter. "Miss Elena, please have a look outside to see where the kids are?"

"Off course."

Only then did Filia pay attention to the price leaned over and said, "If you ask nicely, I'll pay."

She narrowed her eyes. "You'll be telling me an elaborately new and humiliating definition of 'ask nicely' if I accept. Which I won't.

"Besides, who knows where your money comes from anyway?" Memphis said.

"Oh, I still have some leftovers of that wicked witch who I sold something to boost her powers."

"Really," Filia said flatly. "No thanks. It sounds like dirty money."

"And here I was trying to be nice! You are so ungrateful."

Filia had no chance to snap back something, because the door opened again. In came Val and Molly, the former launching himself at Xelloss's back. With inhuman agility, he climbed onto his shoulders. Once there, he clutched Xelloss's head, blocking his eyes.

"There's an ice cream shop around the corner!" Val squeaked.

Milgazia mumbled something behind the massive stack of groceries and knickknacks that blocked his face. Memphis could hear better than Filia and responded, "It's a cold candy that humans like to eat, uncle."

Both Val and Xelloss stared at the Milgazia-supported pile. Val narrowed his eyes.

"You don't know ice cream?" Molly asked.

"We will rectify this at once," Xelloss said, causing all three children to cheer. "Now I like the idea of cones for when walking, but I think we have enough time to sit down."

Memphis glanced at Filia, who shook her head. There was no arguing about sweets with this lot.

To be honest, Filia didn't oppose much anyway. Once it had felt like her mother's duty to reign in rabid sugar consumption, but she soon found for little dragons who grew too quickly it didn't matter. And ice cream _was_ one of the culinary masterpieces of humanity.

Milgazia mumbled something again, and Memphis said, "Uncle wants to know how cones are involved."

"Ice cream and cones always come together. _Especially _Evil Wizard Ice cream Cone Person Thingy. Even if we're not walking."

"That is not my name!" Xelloss said with childish indignation. "For the nth time, your mother is not a good example on how to be a polite person!"

Val, Palu and Molly all stuck their tongue out and Filia was proud.

By now, the shop owner was getting a little worked up over all the racket, so Filia apologized and exploited Xelloss's inattention by saying he'd pay. Dirty money or not, it really was more about objecting to him than anything else. At least this way she knew he wasn't spending it on evil.

Xelloss pried Val off of his head, only to learn he was to pay, minus having been "asked nicely".

Meanwhile, Filia helped Memphis navigate Milgazia out the tiny door. He needed to go through his knees, but repeated offers to just take the stuff back were met with strained phrases about not displeasing the Dragon Slayer. Clearly, everything Filia had told him had gone out the other ear. That said, Xelloss had stacked everything jenga style so she had no idea how to take out one thing without scattering everything.

"That was foul play, miss Filia, using innocent little children to avoid being polite. Such pettiness takes dedication."

"Hear who is talking," Elena said under her breath, but Xelloss didn't reply as he'd already shifted away.

"This would be one of the things I use him for," Filia told Milgazia. He mumbled something in a disproving tone, and Filia wasn't all that interesting in knowing what.

When they arrived at the terrace, Xelloss was seated and just called in a waiter. They met some opposition when the vulpen wanted to enter the terrace, so Filia nudged Val, who ran ahead and took the seat next to the sewer priest.

Val had perfected the art of getting the attention of waiters despite Xelloss. Big cute eyes were his weapon, and implications of a furious mother who would kick a tantrum because "uncle forgot about allergies again". Using this method, he could undermine or at least stall whatever freaky thing Xelloss would have ordered.

As such, Val, Elena, Molly and Palu ended up exactly with the ice cream they wanted and Filia was given very acceptable pear shuttle with little bits of chocolate in it, the only objectionable quality being the tacky little clown on top.

It was almost suspiciously unoffensive. When the orders for Memphis and Milgazia arrived, she saw why he hadn't bothered with her today.

Cones dripping with very dark chocolate, stuck in yellow banana ice cream in the shape of dragons. Strawberry sauce was artistically applied to resemble a bloodbath.

"Xelloss, you never cease to amaze me with your ability to be intensely rude without using words," Filia said as her tail swished out, fighting the urge to shout what she really wanted to say, _you morbid cockroach, that's disgusting!_

"I thought it was an interesting way to reminiscence," he said as he happily jabbed his spoon in his own ice cream plate. He had the same as Milgazia and Memphis, minus the cones.

"It's ... " Memphis said miserably, then added a weak little laugh. Milgazia just stared ... and then actually glared at Xelloss. Filia gave him an equally futile glare, while Xelloss made a show of how dreamy the ice cream was.

"Such a startlingly poor sense of humor. Allow me to introduce you to some _genuine _humor," Milgazia said. "Once, there was a ..."

Memphis noticeably flinched and an artificial smile appeared on her face. She started obsessively eating her ice cream, like she was panicking.

Five minutes of Milgazia's ongoing joke later, Filia understood why.

Oh, did she understand why.

The dragons called him the pleasant Milgazia, but Lina had told her something very different. Something so ridiculous that Filia had dismissed it as a lie.

True, Lina lied about some things, she exaggerated others, but every word about Milgazia's jokes were fact. Filia had thought it silly they deserved a rant about how horrifyingly dull they were, a joke so dull it was the silence of death itself. Now, she truly, magmatically understood the terror of absolute, perfect boredom.

His one liners were merely flat, but weave the chords of their empty tone in a long winded string and the very fabric of sanity was rend apart.

Filia found herself shaking in terror at such eldritch methods, spoon slowly cracking in her balled fist.

Xelloss's head lulled right into his ice cream and he was sobbing incoherently, one of his arms twitching. An astral being's mental state affected their strength and a lot of Xelloss's existence was about Fun and Interesting, it had to be even worse for him. She put a hand on his shoulder in sympathy. Nobody deserved to be subjected to this hell, not even this nuisance.

It took another five minutes before the joke was done. By then, several of the people on the terrace around them had collapsed to the ground, blank eyes stared into the sky. Those still sitting shook in their skin, and a few were having a seizure.

"... The door closed and the light went out. The dragon fell asleep. The story ended. The end."

"That was funny!" Val said with what appeared to be a genuine laugh.

Her son had been possessed, Filia could find no other explanation.

As she tried to wrap her mind around how anything like that could be funny to _her son_, she pulled Xelloss out of his ice cream. To a whole other level of terror, both of his eyes were open and fixed on Milgazia. His arm was still twitching and bloodlust filled the air.

Like it had been when he'd fought Valgaav. On reflex, she grabbed him by his unstable arm and tried to pull him away, but he didn't move an inch. She tried surrounding him with the magic of teleportation, but with all this bloodlust and expanding dark magic she couldn't get the focus she needed.

He was going to kill Milgazia, but for the first time she was there. She could still stop it.

"~Earthlord Rangort, don't let him! Don't you have a plan?~" It was out before she caught herself, and off course nothing happened. "~For crying out loud, do something! If you won't protect your people, why do I even bother helping you?~"

There were no respectful thoughts behind it, only loathing and desperation. In some half formed idea, she considered defiance to Rangort's plan. Would it be, this was the prayer that got answered.

The magic in the earth below stirred, taking on a holy tint. Xelloss was flung off the chair and his concentration broke. Filia pulled him into teleportation and reappeared near an alley on the opposite end of the street. With all her force, she pulled Xelloss out of sight. Once far enough in the dark, she faced him.

"You filthy rat, were you really going to kill Milgazia over a bad joke?"

"Lord Beastmaster did not order me to not kill any golden dragons. All I am to do is remain hidden from devil eyes," he drawled. He didn't look at her, but at the direction Milgazia would be.

"Come on, you can't do this! Think of something positive!"

"That makes me sick in a different way."

"_Your_ positive, not humanity's positive. Think of that time I ruined a town—"

"Killing Milgazia would be my kind of positive."

"No!" She grabbed him by both shoulders and tried shaking him. He didn't budge much, only swaying a little on his feet. Like he couldn't be bother to emulate a realistic human form right now. Rangort's power was still around, though, not allowing him to fully fade.

"No, why?" he asked.

"Won't it really draw a lot of attention if you kill him?" she asked, hating that she couldn't hide the despair in his voice.

"If there were devils around outside of me, all these elves would have noticed them already. I don't care what the dragons notice."

"Xelloss, it's just a joke." Every fibre of her mind revolted at this understatement. "Just listen to it. Someone told a dull joke. You can't be seriously so upset over something so silly that you'd kill the speaker."

"Miss Filia, all of the world is a dream of the Lord of Nightmares. There are many things in this world we take for granted on Her dream logic, and there are many silly things with great gravitas. There's jokes, and there is the eldritch abomination that is Milgazia telling jokes. You just have to accept such weird things in a dream. It was not just a joke."

She laughed, it was more twisted than she'd ever imagine herself sounding. "Yes, it's all a bloody dream. Maybe next dream, I'll kill a god. Now imagine yourself killing the Lord of Nightmares."

"Don't say such things idly, miss Filia," he muttered.

"You're idly contemplating killing ..." Another person, but what would he care for that? She had to choose another word. "... killing a silly, unique part of the dream of the Lord of Nightmares. There, that's me accepting Milgazia as dream logic. You're the one who can't accept it, you want to eliminate it."

He tilted his head and gave that goofy smile, scratching the back of his head. But his eyes were still open, so he needed another little push.

"Your reality is that golden dragons are your weakness," she said as solemnly as she could, trying to sound dull like Milgazia.

That did it. His eyes closed and he was more annoyed than bloodthirsty now.

"They are absolutely not! The very idea that golden dragons like you or him could ever be my weakness when I've practically won the war against you on my own!"

"Oh really?" she said, putting up her best haughty voice. She pulled out a handkerchief, slapped it on his face and wiped the melting icecream remnants off. "The wounds of the battle are very evident."

"That's not injury, that's lost treasure. I never said I was hoarding."

"Oh you ... let's excuse Milgazia, shall we? I'll carry my own bags."

For once, he conceded.

Milgazia lived, and so did Filia. One way or another, and this was not good enough for her. The thought did not let her go anymore : what if she could just snip away dangerous emotions before they went into fruition? A Holy Rezast to work on astral beings might be handy after all.

**· · · · · · ·**

That night, she set up an invitation for Luna Inverse by piecing together an elvish reflection of her childhood. She had not learned to transform until she was a teenager, so it took a little to make herself appear small and her parents as elves. She normally hid these memories deeply and lived for her true family. However, she needed bait and a diversion, so Luna wouldn't derail the dream into an amusement park again.

If anything meant something for sure for Luna Inverse, it was family. Even if she had inadvertently driven away part of her family, something Filia couldn't understand.

Luna took long to appear, during which Filia played with how she imagined her family to look as elves. She'd seen her elder brothers transform, but not her mother or her sisters. She experimented with sculptures of clay, reflected these on the figments once she was satisfied. It was in her mother she placed most imagination, and by the time Luna did finally appear, she still was changing details.

Luna wandered through the wooden room, poked her toe in the fire and snorted. "Quaint, Filia. Not like the real thing at all, I bet."

Filia set her sculptures aside and stood up. "Miss Luna, I changed my mind."

With a loud plop, Luna dropped in a leather chair. Her trademark grin appeared. "Ooh, do tell me what changed."

"I discovered cruelty in the gods," she said.

Luna scratched her cheek. "Eh, I always just thought they were lazy."

Filia said nothing, but called into the dream the words of the prophecy, overlain on the image of her slaughtered clan. Amidst this, a figment of Milgazia wandered into view, speaking of the demise of Ragradia. She added in her own words.

"Yeah ... With lazy gods I mean I just know about Rags. Not sure though why Razzy would want to send his own followers to their death, but if I'd guess on astral logic, I'd say he got massively pissed off when he noticed Valgaav's involved and got retroactive irritation of the death of the ancients. But that's just me. We can't say anything for sure until we know whether or not gods can predict the future, sense the future or just guess the whole mess."

Filia hadn't considered imperfect future prediction, or limited one, but it didn't matter. She brought forth her memories of today. "I threatened Rangort with becoming a problem if he didn't help me. Only then did he make a move. It didn't matter Milgazia was in danger before."

"Yeah, I find it tough to believe Rangort wouldn't be watching your place, given their plan's unfolding there. What'd Milgazia do anyway? Xelloss is hard as hell to provoke."

"Milgazia's jokes are very bad."

"... I was prepared to say it sounds like a bad joke but you beat me. Seriously, though, how did he do it?"

"I told you. A bad joke."

"Never mind. You clearly don't want to tell me so it's something deliciously humiliating. I'll find out later." Luna waved her hand, and with that motion the landscape of corpses disappeared. They were falling again, each still on their chairs.

"Anyway, I don't care much for your reasons," Luna said. "Let's just get the job done. You can do with the information what you want."

"THOU SHALL TELL ME!" Luna Above hollered.

They looked up at the Ceiphied plush. Luna groaned and ripped a leathery piece off the chair to cover her face with.

"I don't mind, Luna. In essence, I agree with your reason to understand how astral beings stick together. It's for defense against astral beings. But ... it's not just the gods. It's also so I can finally have some leverage over Xelloss, and not pray to get help. What if the gods decide they don't care one day?"

Luna dropped the leather. "I'm aboard with that."

"DEFINITELY," Luna above avowed, and a choir of angels fanned out. Luna let out an agonized noise, not unlike a strangled cat.

"Your idea of Ceiphied is delightful as always," Luna said as she flipped over the chair, so she looked at the oncoming taiga.

When they were near the ground, Luna burned up the chairs and landed on her feet. Her casual clothes was gone, replaced by the Zephyrian Ceiphied Knight armor. Filia herself wore a simplistic version of her priestess outfit, minus hat. It made her feel a bit uncomfortable.

This time, there was something different about the golden fence of her soul. Where before the shapes were erratic, now double crosses with circles at their center had grown around the hole. Luna drummed on them with her fingers.

"What does this mean?"

"Subconscious barricade. I guess these shapes are a sort of anti-Life Law, or maybe you just use them due to trauma or whatever. Doesn't matter._ I _can use it too."

Luna clapped her hands together once, causing a thunderous sound. Filia felt what she was to do, so she opened her soul gate a little. At the same time, she set the system of Holy Rezast in motion.

Luna grabbed one of the crosses from the fence, lacing her fingers over the center circle. "Filia?"

No going back now. Filia felt like she ought to tremble, but at the bottom of her soul little sentiments like that meant less. It was her anger and frustration that went far deeper. What Luna requested was a little piece of her soul, not to cut it off but to wield it as a weapon. Filia gave her permission, and so Luna drew out a cross of which the longest end became a sword.

"Oh, dramatic irony." Luna licked her lips. With expert hands, she turned the cross around once. It looked like testing weight, but in reality it tested resonance.

Almost nonchalant, Luna leaned leaned on the gate's frame with her other hand. She whistled without faltering, creating a rising tone that was carried far out.

The wind howled back to Luna, changing directions for her call. A fierce force rushed past Luna, straight into Filia's self. The sheer power cut her metaphorical breath, threatening to snuff her very life force if she was not careful. Yet this was but the smallest resonance, just the extended sight of a god.

Filia pulled herself together, and with that white threads shot from the fence, forming a glowing Life Law Circle in the hole. The power of Valwin condensed, taking a form Filia could comprehend more easily : out grew a many eyes dragon head, more arthropod than reptilian. A silver exoskeleton covered a stump skull with segmented mouth, and sharp long scales jutted from the head and neck. Like growing ice crystal, seeping scales covered the ground below it. Filia feared they'd piece Luna, but the woman easily stepped on them.

Balancing on these spikes, she stood at the root of the neck, waiting. Just as the flow was about the reverse, she grabbed the glowing circle and crooked it. The flow backward stopped, preventing Valwin's power and newly gained knowledge from reaching the Tower of Wind. It remained here, within this pinprick of the wind god.

Luna completed the first phase by setting a foot on the neck and ramming down the blade, thereby sealing the fragment within Filia's soul. The neck bled light that washed out as blood in the sea, shrill screaming filled their ears. Filia winced despite her efforts not to care.

Luna willed the wound to grow. Her power broke the fragment in small lines of logic for Filia to pull apart. The head became silent and stopped trashing, and Luna beckoned her to approach. So her surprise, she found she could easily walked on the razor sharp blades.

Carefully, Filia knelt down at the wound. Her hands grew claws as she reached for the astral body. Thread by thread, she pulled out the principles of the godly body. For now she did nothing to change it, only to learn. Filia had always imagined astral beings like vague energy fields, but the reality was full of complex ... concepts? Principles? Rules? The anatomy of the mind was poorly compared to physical form even in a dream landscape, but she didn't need to see. This was nothing she could truly feel or hear or grasp, but she could think it.

Break down an astral being and they are purely miasma constrained by soul and thought. She found the fence of Valwin's soul, intangible beyond her dreamscape yet within herself now. The piece of power still possessed soul, stretched thin and ready to pull back to its source. As she realized this, Luna also knew. With a few twists, Luna dug the blade in deeper and Filia contracted the hole in her soul further. Thread by thread, they cut Valwin's power using the walls of the soul and Luna's enforcement.

Fragments of memories crept into her mind, drawing her back to old times of dragon gods. Luna was already familiar with the sensation and so it felt less alien to Filia too. She dug her hands deeper into blasphemy, only to learn the gods cared not for concepts of sanctity and sin. As if it was news.

She finally smiled, even as far above her conscience readied a dose of guilt.

**· · · · · · ·**


End file.
